Chapter 5 GEORGIA'S NOBLE SONS.

A Minister of a Day-Purity of Administration-Then and Now-Widow Timberlake-Van Buren's Letter-Ambrister and Arbuthnot-Old Hickory Settles a Difficulty-A Cause of the Late War-Honored Dead.

Immediately upon the inauguration of Mr. Adams, Mr. Crawford left Washington, and returned home. His residence was near Lexington, Georgia, upon a small farm. It was an unostentatious home, but comfortable, and without pretensions superior to those of his more humble neighbors. Mr. Crawford had held many positions in the service of the country, and had honestly and ably discharged the duties of these for the public good. As a senator in Congress, he won the confidence of the nation by the display of great abilities; and gave universal satisfaction of the pure patriotism of his heart, in all he said, or did. He was distinguished, as minister to France, for his open candor and simplicity of manners-so much so, as to cause Napoleon to remark of him "that no Government but a republic could create or foster so much truth and honest simplicity of character as he found in Mr. Crawford."

For years, he had served the nation as financial minister, and at a time when the method of keeping, transferring, and disbursing the moneys of Government afforded infinite opportunities for peculation-when vast amounts of money arising from the sale of the public domain in the West and the South was under his control, and when he had the selection of the depositories of this, and when these deposits were of great value to the local or State banks, so that they would have paid handsomely for them; yet this noble being came out of the furnace without the smell of fire upon his garments.

There was but one man who ever imputed dishonesty to him, or selfish motives in any act. When the claims of Mr. Adams and Mr. Crawford for the Presidency were being discussed, and party asperity sought to slay its victims, Ninian Edwards, a senator of Congress from Illinois, charged Mr. Crawford with impropriety of conduct in depositing, for selfish and dishonest purposes, the public moneys arising from the sale of lands in Illinois, in banks notoriously insolvent. Edwards had been appointed minister to Mexico, had left the Senate, and had gone to his home, preparatory to his leaving for Mexico; and from his home made this attack upon Mr. Crawford. The son-in-law of Edwards, a man named Cook, was the representative in Congress from Illinois, and, if I remember correctly, was the only representative who at the time reiterated these charges from his seat. Mr. Crawford immediately demanded an investigation of his conduct. This was had, and the result was a triumphant acquittal from all blame; and so damaging was this investigation to Edwards that the President recalled the commission of Edwards as minister to Mexico, and appointed Joel R. Poinsett, of South Carolina, in his stead. Edwards was at New Orleans when the letter of recall from the President reached him, that far on his way to Mexico: he returned in disgrace, and soon faded from public notice forever. At the time, it was asserted he was the brother-in-law of Mr. Adams, and knowing that some of the banks in which Crawford had deposited the public treasure had failed, he imagined complicity of a dishonest character, on the part of Crawford, with the officers of the banks, and expected to injure him and subserve the interest of Adams. In what contrast does this transaction place the purity of the Government, as then administered, with its conduct of to-day, and how peerless were those who were trusted then with public confidence and high places, in comparison with the public men who fill their places now!

Georgia has given to the nation two Secretaries of the Treasury-William H. Crawford and Howell Cobb; they were citizens of adjoining counties. Cobb was born within a few miles of Crawford's grave. They were both administering the office at a time in the history of the nation when she was surrounded with perils. The one, when she was just coming out of a war with the most powerful nation on earth; the other, when she was just going into a war, civil and gigantic. Both were afforded every opportunity for dishonest peculation, and both came out, despite the allurements of temptation, with clean hands and untainted reputation. They were reared and lived in the atmosphere of honesty; they sought the inspiration from the hills and vales, blue skies, and clear pure waters of Middle Georgia. The surroundings of nature were pure; the honest farmers and mechanics, her professional men and merchants, were and are pure. It was the home of Upson, Gilmer, Thomas W. Cobb, Peter Early, Eli S. Sherter, Stephen Willis Harris, William Causby Dawson, Joseph Henry Lumpkin; and now is the home of A.H. Stephens, Ben. Hill, Robert Toombs, Bishop Pierce, and his great and glorious father, and in their integrity and lofty manhood they imitate the mighty dead who sleep around them.

Glorious old State! though long trodden with the tyrant's foot, there is a resurrectionary spirit moving thy people, which will lift thee again to the high pinnacle from which thou wast thrust, purified and reinvigorated for a career of brighter glory than thou hast yet known-when the men who plague you now shall be driven from your State, and the sons of your soil, in the vigor of their souls, undefiled and untrammelled, shall wield your destinies.

Like a Roman of latter days, Mr. Crawford retired from the service of his country poorer than when he entered it. There was sweet seclusion in his retreat, and honest hearts in his humble neighbors to receive him with "Come home, thou good and faithful servant; we receive thee, as we gave thee, in thy greatness and thy goodness, undefiled." He had only partially recovered from his, paralysis, though his general health was much improved; rest and retirement, and release from public duties and cares, served to reinvigorate him greatly. His estate was small, his family large, and his friends, to aid him, secured his election to the bench of the Superior Court, the duties of which he continued to discharge until his death. He survived to see General Jackson elected President, to whom he gave a cordial support. Mr. Calhoun had been nominated and elected Vice-President with General Jackson, both with overwhelming majorities. Crawford had carried all his strength to the support of the ticket, and the friends of Crawford and Calhoun were found acting in concert, notwithstanding the hostility yet unappeased between their chiefs. It was the union of necessity, not of sympathy or affection. At this juncture, there was perhaps as cordial a hatred between the people of South Carolina and those of Georgia, as ever existed between the Greek and the Turk.

Mr. Calhoun, it seemed now to be settled, was to be the successor of General Jackson. The new parties were organized, and that headed by General Jackson assumed the name of Democrat, and now held undisputed control of more than two-thirds of the States. Mr. Calhoun had broken away from the usage of former Vice-Presidents, which was to retire, and permit a president of the Senate pro tem. to be chosen to preside over the deliberations of that body. He determined to fulfil the duties assigned by the Constitution, and in person to preside. His transcendent abilities and great strength of character by this course was constantly kept before the nation. His manners and presence gave increased dignity and importance to the office, daily increasing his popularity with the Senate and the nation. His position was an enviable one, and was such as seemed to promise the power to grasp, at the proper time, the goal of his ambition, the Presidency of the republic.

From the commencement of General Jackson's Administration there was a powerful opposition organized. It consisted of the very best talent in the Senate and House. The Cabinet was a weak one. Mr. Van Buren was premier, or Secretary of State, with John H. Eaton, a very ordinary man, Secretary of War; Branch, Secretary of the Navy, and Ingham, Secretary of the Treasury; with John M. Berrien, Attorney-General. Eaton was from Tennessee, and was an especial favorite of General Jackson. He had been in the Senate from Tennessee, and had formed at Washington the acquaintance of a celebrated widow of a purser in the navy, Mrs. Timberlake. This woman had by no means an enviable reputation, and had been supposed the mistress of Eaton, prior to their marriage. She had found her way to the heart of Jackson, who assumed to be her especial champion. The ladies of the Cabinet ministers refused to recognize her or to interchange social civilities with her. This enraged the President, and it was made a sine qua non, receive Mrs. Eaton, or quit the Cabinet. Van Buren was a widower, and did not come under the order. He saw the storm coming, and, to avoid consequences of any sort, after consultation with Jackson, resigned. His letter of resignation is a literary as well as a political curiosity. General Jackson, it is said, handed it to Forsyth, with the remark "that he could not make head or tail of it; and, by the eternal, Mr. Forsyth, I do not believe Van Buren can himself." This was the forerunner of a general dismissal of the entire Cabinet, save Eaton, who resigned. This rupture startled the whole nation, but nothing Jackson could do, seemed capable of affecting his growing popularity. A new Cabinet was organized, and soon after Mr. Van Buren was sent minister to England, and Eaton minister to Spain.

The opposition were in a majority in the Senate, led on by Clay and Webster. These were confronted by Forsyth, Benton, and Wright: the wrestle was that of giants. The world, perhaps, never furnished a more adroit debater than John Forsyth. He was the Ajax Telemon of his party, and was rapidly rivalling the first in the estimation of that party. He hated Calhoun, and at times was at no pains to conceal it in debate. In the warmth of debate, upon one occasion, he alluded in severe terms, to the manner in which Mr. Crawford had been treated, during his incumbency as Secretary of the Treasury, by a certain party press in the interest of Mr. Calhoun. This touched the Vice-President on the raw: thus stung, he turned and demanded if the senator alluded to him. Forsyth's manner was truly grand, as it was intensely fierce: turning from the Senate to the Vice-President, he demanded with the imperiousness of an emperor: "By what right does the Chair ask that question of me?" and paused as if for a reply, with his intensely gleaming eye steadily fixed upon that of Calhoun. The power was with the speaker, and the Chair was awed into silence. Slowly turning to the Senate, every member of which manifested deep feeling, he continued, as his person seemed to swell into gigantic proportions, and his eye to sweep the entire chamber, "Let the galled jade wince, our withers are unwrung," and went on with the debate.

The cause of the animosity of Jackson, toward Crawford was a report which had reached Jackson, that Crawford, as a member of Mr. Monroe's Cabinet, had insisted in Cabinet meeting upon the arrest of Jackson for a violation of national law, in entering without orders, as the commanding general of the army of the United States, the territory of a friendly power, and seizing its principal city by military force. General Jackson had entered Florida, then a dependency of Spain, with which power we were in amity, and seized Pensacola.

A band of desperate men had made a lodgment in Florida, headed by two Scotchmen, Ambrister and Arbuthnot. These men had acquired great influence with the Indians, and were stimulating them to constant depredations upon the frontier people of Georgia. When pursued, they sought safety in the territorial limits of Florida. Remonstrances with the Government of Spain had produced no effect. It could not, or would not expel them, or attempt any control of the Indians; and it became necessary to put a stop to their aggressions. Jackson commanded, and was the very man for such a work. He placed before the President the difficulties, but said he could and would break up this nest of freebooters, if he had authority from the President to enter the territory, and, if necessary, take possession of it. It would be an act of war to authorize this course, he knew; but he was prepared for the responsibility (he generally was.) "I do not ask for formal orders: simply say to me, 'Do it.' Tell Johnny Ray to say so to me, and it shall be done." Johnny Ray was a member of Congress at that time from East Tennessee, and devoted to Jackson. This was done, and the work was accomplished. The two leaders were captured and summarily executed, claiming to be British subjects.

Mr. Monroe in some things was a weak man; he was surrounded by a Cabinet greatly superior to himself; he had not counselled with them, and he feared the responsibility he had assumed would not be sanctioned or approved by his constitutional advisers, and he timidly shrank from communicating these secret instructions to them. The matter was brought before the Cabinet, by a remonstrance from the Spanish Government, in the person of her representative at Washington. In the discussion which arose, a motion was submitted to arrest and court-martial Jackson. Calhoun was indignant that as Secretary of War he had not been consulted. General Jackson was sent for, and very soon the matter was quieted, and Spain satisfied.

It was in this discussion, or Cabinet meeting, that Mr. Crawford was represented to General Jackson as moving his arrest. Mr. Adams defended Jackson most strenuously, and it is not improbable that the President may have informed him, sub rosa, of what had been communicated to Jackson. The intimacy between Mr. Monroe and Mr. Adams was close, and it was thought he preferred him, and gave him more unreservedly his confidence than any of his ministers.

I believe it was in the early part of the year 1829, or 1830, (I have, where I write, no means of reference, and will not pretend to great accuracy in dates,) when Mr. Crawford received a visit from Mr. Van Buren, and his friend, Mr. Cambreling, at his home in Oglethorpe. What transpired during that visit, I do not pretend to know; but soon after, Mr. Forsyth received a letter from Mr. James Hamilton, of New York, making certain inquiries with regard to this move in Mr. Monroe's Cabinet. Mr. Forsyth appealed to Mr. Crawford, who responded, and in detail revealed the proceedings in council upon this matter, charging, without equivocation, Mr. Calhoun as being the secretary who had moved the arrest and trial of Jackson. At the time of this development, General Jackson was absent from Washington, on a visit to his home in Tennessee, and Mr. Calhoun was in South Carolina. A correspondence ensued between the President and Vice-President of the most acrimonious character. Mr. Calhoun denied in toto the charge. Mr. Crawford appealed to the members of the Cabinet, Adams and Crowninshield, who sustained the truth of Mr. Crawford's statements, and Mr. Calhoun clearly implicated himself, by accusing Crawford of a breach of honor in disclosing cabinet secrets. It is not my purpose to enter into the minutiae of this affair, further than to show the part taken in it by Mr. Crawford. Mr. Van Buren did not appear in this imbroglio; he doubtless had his agency, as his interest, in bringing this matter to General Jackson's knowledge. Mr. Calhoun was identified with the popularity of Jackson and his party, and was now, by common consent of that party, the prominent man for the presidential succession. Mr. Van Buren had been the Secretary of State of General Jackson, had studied him well, and knew him well. He knew also the temper of the Democratic party: through his agency the political morality of New York politicians had permeated the Democracy from one end of the country to the other: the doctrine subsequently enunciated by Mr. Marcy, that "to the victors belonged the spoils," was in full operation throughout the nation as the Democratic practice. This was the cement which closely held the politician to party fealty. Jackson rewarded his friends, and punished his enemies; Jackson was an omnipotent power; Jackson was the Democratic party. To secure his friendship was necessary to success; to incur his enmity, certain destruction. Van Buren was as artful as ambitious: he had indoctrinated Jackson with his own policy, by inducing him to believe it was his own; and the frankness of Jackson's nature prevented his believing anything was not what it professed to be. It was the ambition of Van Buren to be President, and his sagacity taught him the surest means to effect this end was to secure effectually and beyond peradventure the friendship and support of Jackson. Mr. Calhoun was between him and the aim of his ambition: to thrust him from Jackson's confidence was to effect all he desired. This was done; the breach was irreparable. Van Buren was sent, in the interim of the session of Congress, minister plenipotentiary to the Court of St. James.

Mr. Clay had come back into the Senate, and was heading and leading an opposition, then in the majority in the Senate; and the nomination of Van Buren was rejected. Jackson, assured that Calhoun had deceived him, was bitter in his denunciations of him, and Calhoun was sympathizing with this opposition. Jackson denounced Calhoun as his informant of Crawford being the Cabinet minister who had in Cabinet council moved his arrest. Calhoun gave the lie direct to the assertion; and that Jackson was capable of lying, referred as evidence to his statements relative to the charge of bargain and intrigue against Mr. Clay. But enough had been done to crush out the popularity and the hopes of Calhoun, beyond the limits of South Carolina. There never has been so sudden and so terrible a fall from such a height of any man in this nation-not excepting that of Aaron Burr. John C. Calhoun, in talent, learning, and statesmanship, was greatly superior to Jackson, and unsurpassed by any man of the age. But the breath of Jackson was the blight which withered his laurels, and crushed his prospects, and destroyed his usefulness forever, in a night.

What consequences have grown out of this quarrel, I leave for the pen of the historian. Yet I cannot forbear the speculation that the late and most disastrous war was one, and of consequence the ruin and desolation of the South, and the threatened destruction of the Government at this time. The agitation which led to these terrible consequences, commenced with Mr. Calhoun immediately subsequent to these events. Does any man suppose, if Mr. Calhoun had succeeded to the Presidency, that he would have commenced or continued this agitation? For one, I do not. The measure of his ambition would have been full: his fame would have been a chapter in the history of his country-his talents employed in the administration of the Government, the honor and boast of her people, and her preservation and prosperity the enduring monument of his fame and glory. But, wronged as he believed, disappointed as he knew, he put forth all his strength, and, Samson-like, pulled down the pillars of her support; and, disunited, crushed, and miserable, she is a melancholy spectacle to the patriot, and in her desolation a monument of disappointed ambition.

That Mr. Calhoun anticipated any such results, I do not believe. To suppose he desired them, and to the end of his life labored to produce them, would be to suppose him little less than a fiend. Blinded by his prejudices and the hatred natural toward those who had accomplished his political ruin, he could not calmly and dispassionately weigh the influence of his acts upon the future of his country.

Mr. Crawford was now rapidly declining, his nervous system was completely undermined, and he felt the approach of death calmly and without fear. Still, he continued to give his attention to business, and was sufficiently strong to go abroad to calls of duty. In one of these journeys he stopped to spend the night in the house of a friend, and was found dead in his bed in the morning, after a quiet and social evening with his friend and family.

William Holt Crawford was a native of Virginia: his family were Scotch, and came early to the United States, and have been remarkable for their talents and energy. Since the Revolution, there has scarcely been a time that some one of the family has not been prominently before the public as a representative man. Mr. Crawford was an eminent type of his race, sternly honest, of ardent temperament, full of dignity, generous, frank, and brave. Plain and simple in his habits, disdaining everything like ostentation, or foolish display-strictly moral, firm in his friendship, and unrelenting in his hatred, his sagacity and sincerity forbade the forming of the one or the other without abundant cause. He was never known to desert a friend or shrink from a foe. In form and person he was very imposing; six feet two inches in height; his head was large, forehead high and broad; his eyes were blue and brilliant, and, when excited, very piercing. His complexion was fair, and, in early life, ruddy; he was, when young, exceedingly temperate in his habits, but as he advanced in years he indulged too freely in the luxuries of the table, and his physicians attributed mainly to this cause his attack of paralysis, which ultimately destroyed him. His mind had been very much excited during the Presidential canvass; the attacks of his enemies were fierce and merciless, and very irritating to him; and this doubtless had much to do with it. He lies buried in the garden of his home, without a stone to mark the spot. It is a reproach to the people of Georgia that her most eminent son should be neglected to sleep in an undistinguished grave. But this neglect does not extend alone to Mr. Crawford. I believe, of all her distinguished men, James A. Meriwether is the only one whose grave has been honored with a monumental stone by the State. Crawford, Cobb, Dooly, Jackson, Troup, Forsyth, Campbell, Lumpkin, Dawson, Walker, Colquitt, Berrien, Daugherty, and many others who have done the State some service and much honor, are distinguished in their graves only by the green sod which covers them.