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1824: The Arkansas War: Chapter Twenty Three
Last updated: Friday, October 13, 2006 18:41 EDT
Washington, D.C.
November 7, 1824
“We can take a carriage, if you prefer,” Houston said. “It’s chilly out.”
Maria Hester shook her head. “Oh, stop being so pestiferously male, Sam. I swear! I’m not even sure I’m pregnant in the first place. If I am, it’s not more than a few weeks.”
She looked up, giving him a sly smile. Then, leaned into him a bit, squeezing his arm more tightly. “I will say you didn’t waste any time, once you got back.”
Sam didn’t know whether to look smug or embarrassed. He tried for dignity, instead.
And failed completely, judging from his wife’s giggle.
“Come on,” she said. “If you want to talk to Andy before he says anything public, you’d best do it now. It’s already noon.” She nodded toward the distant Capitol. “Besides, we only have to walk a mile. This time of year, Pennsylvania Avenue won’t even be that muddy.”
After a hundred feet, she qualified the statement. “Well. Compared to summer, anyway.”
“I’ve seen pigsties that were cleaner than this city,” Sam muttered.
“Stop it!” Maria Hester scolded. “You promised. No politics until we got to the Senator’s chambers.”
When John Coffee entered Andrew Jackson’s office, the senator was also looking out of a window. In his case, positioned as it was on the second floor of the Capitol, one that gave him a very nice view of the president’s house he hoped to occupy soon. The “White House,” some people were starting to call it, now that the house had been repaired and repainted after the British vandalism of the past war.
All of the key men in Jackson’s entourage were already present in the chamber, seated here and there about the room. Judge John Overton; Tennessee state senator Hugh Lawson White; John Henry Eaton, Tennessee’s other U.S. senator; and Eaton’s brother-in-law, William H. Lewis.
Lewis seemed gloomy, but Coffee discounted that. The man’s heavy face always gave him a solemn demeanor, except when he was talking. But both Overton and Eaton seemed out-of-sorts as well.
Jackson, on the other hand, seemed in something of an impish mood. Hearing Coffee enter, he gave him a peculiar smile and waved him toward one of the empty chairs. “Have a seat, John.”
“Yes, do,” said Overton. “Maybe you can talk some sense into him.”
Sitting down, Coffee cocked his head. “Sense about what?”
“This,” said Eaton. He picked up some sheets of paper and handed them over.
Coffee immediately recognized Jackson’s handwriting, which was quite unmistakable. Even if it hadn’t been, the senator’s sometimes eccentric spelling and syntax would have identified the author.
It was a speech, evidently the one Jackson proposed to give to the Senate later that afternoon. Coffee took the time to read it slowly and carefully. Being one of Andy’s closest friends, he wasn’t surprised at all by the quality of the speech. Its intellectual content, at least, if not the specific thrust. Even after all these years, many people still kept thinking of Jackson as if he were some sort of semi-literate frontier roughneck. In point of fact, although the senator’s rudimentary formal education still left traces in his prose, Jackson was as astute and well-read a politician as most any in the United States. John Quincy Adams excepted, of course.
When he was finished, Coffee laid the speech down on the low table in front of him.
“If you just keep your mouth shut, Andy, I’m pretty sure this will all blow over.”
“That’s just what I told him,” Eaton complained. “The votes were in all over the country before the news from Arkansas had time to spread. Much, anyway. And those people out west and in the south—most of the southern states wouldn’t have gotten the news at all, before the election—who did hear about it would just assume—”
“That Andy Jackson was another God-damned Henry Clay,” the senator interrupted. But the words weren’t snarled. Actually, they’d been said quite good-humoredly.
Eaton flushed. “Andy, that’s not the point and you know it.”
“Actually, it is the point,” Overton said mildly. “And you know it as well as anyone here does.”
The judge raised his hand, forestalling Eaton’s further protest. “Not the part about another Henry Clay—and, Andy, don’t let Rachel hear you blaspheming like that. Nobody thinks Andy and Henry Clay are any more alike than bulls and roosters. What they do think is that the general who won the Horseshoe Bend and the Mississippi ain’t likely to stand by twiddling his thumbs while a bunch of niggers butcher white folks.”
“He’s right, Andy,” said Coffee. “Just keep your mouth shut and everybody will assume that Old Hickory will be Old Hickory. Plenty of time after you settle in the White House to set them straight.”
Jackson had been pulling out the chair to his desk, preparatory to sitting down. But now he stopped and stood up straight. “Steal the election, you mean.”
Ramrod-straight. Coffee heaved a sigh. “You and your damn pride—and don’t give me lectures on blaspheming, Judge Overton. You, of all people.”
“I’ll be blasted if I will,” said Jackson. “All that happened here is that Henry Clay—as foul a man as ever besmirched the halls of Congress; I hate that bastard with a passion, and you all know it—financed a pack of bandits, using his connections with the stinking Bank to raise the money, in order to weasel his way into the presidency. Give me one good reason I should support that.”
The earlier good humor was gone, now. He gave his advisers the same blue-eyed glare that was famous across much of the country. “No, sirs, I shall not.”
But none of those men had remained Andy Jackson’s friends and advisers by being easily intimidated. “That ain’t the point, Andy,” said Overton. “It all comes down to the race issue. You know it just as well as we do. Yes, sure, Crittenden’s men were bandits. But they were white bandits—and the men who massacred them were all niggers.”
“The commander who gave the order wasn’t,” Jackson fired back. “There’s no dispute over that, not in any of the reports. His name is Patrick Driscol. As Scots-Irish as I am, and with a skin paler than mine. Formerly of the United States army. A major, when he resigned. I know. He served under me in New Orleans, and was one of the best officers I’ve ever had.”
Silence filled the room, for a time. Jackson shoved the chair back under the table and went to stand at the window again.
By the time they were halfway down Pennsylvania Avenue, Sam wished he’d been firm about calling for a carriage. Maria Hester might have a fortitude to shame most frontier women, but—dammit—his boots were filthy. His favorite boots, too.
Of course, his wife’s shoes were a hopeless wreck. But those were the old ones she didn’t care about anyway, that she only kept for just such promenades. Like any experienced lady of Washington, she had a nice set in her purse, to change into when they reached their destination.
“Are you sure—”
“Sam Houston, Injun fighter and war hero,” his wife jibed. “Defeated by a little mud. Just soldier on, soldier.”
“I retired from the army, remember?”
“Then why does everyone keep calling you ‘Colonel’?”
Jackson let out a sigh, his stiff shoulders easing a little. “There’s something wrong with John Calhoun,” he said, so softly the men in the room had to strain to hear him. “Him, and all the men like him.”
Overton frowned. “We were talking about Henry Clay.”
Jackson turned around. “No, we weren’t. Clay doesn’t give a damn about Crittenden’s men, even less than I do. This isn’t about Henry Clay. Not really. This is about John Calhoun. Might be better to say, the south that Calhoun is doing his level best to bring into existence. Like some sort of Araby heathen, trying to summon a demon out of a sealed lamp.”
Jackson now had his hands clasped behind his back. His jaws seemed more gaunt than ever. “I got no use for Sam Houston’s fancies about black folk. Indians, maybe a little, but not niggers. Never did, never will. It’s just a fact that the black race is inferior to the white race. Taken as a whole, at any rate. I’ll allow for the exceptional individual, here and there.”
He paused, scanning the room. “Anybody here disagree with me?”
After a moment, they all shook their heads.
“Didn’t think so. That’s why slavery doesn’t bother me any. Never did. If that fraud Thomas Jefferson wants to beat his breast over it—though I notice he has yet to free a single one of his slaves—let him do it. I won’t.” His jaws grew tighter still. “But that doesn’t mean I agree with Calhoun, either. That man…”
He took a deep breath. “That man is just plain mean. He’s like all that type of slave-owner. The same ones who played the traitor at New Orleans. The fact that I don’t think black men are the equal of white men, doesn’t mean I think they aren’t still men. They’re not dumb animals, tarnation, with no rights at all. And that’s exactly what John Calhoun thinks—and that’s exactly where he wants to lead the nation. With Henry Clay playing his tune, because he’s the fanciest piper in town.”
He went over to his desk and picked up one of the newspapers lying there. “Never thought I’d see the day when I though the Intelligencer was the best paper around,” he said wryly. “But today, at least, on this issue, the fact is they are.”
He held up the paper. “Got another article in here by that Bryant fellow. Gives you all the details you want to know—or don’t want to know—about how Crittenden’s men conducted themselves. You’ve read it, I assume?”
Again, they all nodded.
“So, fine,” Jackson continued. “Let me ask you this, then. Suppose a gang of white criminals broke into a black freedman’s house right here in Washington—and don’t bother yapping to me about the exclusion laws, because you know as well as I do they aren’t enforced half the time. There’s too many black servants their masters want to keep around, free or not, including me. Why? Because some of them are good servants, that’s why. Not to mention they don’t want to listen to the kids hollering, when their nanny gets sent away. Or the cook who gives them treats when their parents aren’t looking.”
Still holding the paper in his left hand, he ran the fingers of the other through his stiff gray hair. “Truth is, I’m sorry now I ever voted for those blasted laws. They’re just a violation of human nature, is all. Inferior or not, black people are still people, and most people—any color, leaving aside the Calhouns of the world—form attachments to each other. Free or slave, it don’t matter. It just don’t.”
He stopped the hair-ruffling and slapped the paper back on the desk. “So let me ask you. A gang of white criminals breaks into a black man’s home, starts stealing everything he owns—which ain’t much—and sets to raping his womenfolk in the bargain. So he shoots them dead, like any man would do who was worth his salt. Am I supposed to demand that he gets arrested and punished? Just because he’s black?”
He was back to glaring. “Well? Answer me. Am I?”
After a moment, everyone looked away.
“What I figured. Be damned if I will. They want Old Hickory, I aim to give ‘em Old Hickory. Right between the eyes.”
Thankfully, the Capitol was only a hundred yards away. For all her determination and teasing, Sam could tell that his wife was tiring. Plowing through mud was hard enough for a big man like Sam. He could just imagine how a mile of it would exhaust a small woman like Maria Hester.
Coffee had been watching Jackson closely, through his little peroration. When it was done, he chuckled.
“What’s so funny?” the senator demanded.
“You are, if you want to know the truth. Sam Houston’s still sticking in your throat, isn’t he?”
Jackson glared at him. “I kept that promise, and it’s done. Told him so myself.”
“Yes, I know. So what?” Coffee didn’t flinch at all from that blue-eyed fury. Worst thing you could do around Andy Jackson.
After a few seconds, the glare started to fade. After a few more, Jackson even started chuckling himself.
“Blast that youngster,” he muttered. “Still worse, once he named his firstborn after me. Now that the kid’s old enough to talk, he calls me ‘Grandpa.’ Damn little conniving clever politician like his daddy.”
He yanked out the chair and folded himself into his seat. “Yes, fine. I suppose so.” He stuck out his bony finger, like a gun. “Not that I didn’t mean it, when I said I had use for Houston’s fancies. Still.”
Coffee understood. “You said he’d turn down the rose of fortune, when you offered it to him. And you were right. He did. Proud as a peacock you were, afterward.”
“I sure was. Proud of both of us. Him for turning it down, and me for knowing he would and knowing why.”
He swiveled his gaze onto the other men in the room. “Do you understand, now? We’ve talked it over, like we always do. But the decision’s mine, and I’ve made it.”
He’d never lowered the finger. Now, the bony weapon pointed to the newspaper. “There’s my rose of fortune, gentlemen, that you’re waving under my nose. The answer’s ‘no.’ We’ll go into the president’s house through the front door, or we won’t go in at all. Let Henry Clay sneak himself in through the servant’s entrance, if he wants it that bad.”
The steps of the Capitol were a blessed relief from the mud. As soon as they reached the top of the steps, Maria Hester crouched and began opening her bag.
“No way I’m going in there in these filthy things.”
Sam smiled.
“Colonel Houston!”
He turned, still smiling, but the smile faded almost immediately. The man coming up the steps toward him had no friendly look on his face. As much of it as Sam could see, at any rate. The fellow had a broad-brimmed hat to go with a long cloak. He looked positively conspiratorial, like something out of a cheap stage performance.
“May I help you, sir?”
“You were born in Virginia, am I not correct?”
Coffee nodded. Whether because he agreed with Jackson or not, he didn’t even know himself. But that wasn’t the point, in the end. You could always trust Andy Jackson. Not to be right, necessarily, but to be Andy Jackson. For Coffee, that was good enough.
Judging from the nods that went around the room, the other men had come to the same conclusion.
“All right, then,” said Eaton. “We’ll almost surely lose this election. But there’s 1828 to look to.”
“Clay’s sure to go for two terms,” cautioned White.
Overton started to say something, but Jackson cut him off. “He’ll try. Whether he can do it or not—”
A loud clap coming from outside interrupted him. Jackson’s head twisted around to the window. “That was a gunshot.”
Sam never went armed in the streets of Washington. Now, he was half-regretting it. He was fully regretting not having accepted Chester’s offer to come along. This man—
“I asked you a question, sir!”
“And did so most uncivilly,” Sam snapped back. “But the answer is no secret. Yes, I was—”
“You are traitor, then!”
“Sam!” Maria Hester shrieked.
A pistol was coming out from under the cloak. Sam started to lunge for him.
Maria Hester came up from her crouch, wildly swinging her bag. The fancy shoes she gotten half out went flying, one of them into the man’s face.
He flinched. The pistol went off, but missed. Sam smashed his face with a fist. It was a big fist, and Sam was in a fury. His assailant’s lips were shredded against his teeth, and some teeth sent skittering down the steps. So was the man himself, his hat coming loose and his cloak swirling like a blanket.
Sam started to follow. He was going to beat this bastard into—
“Sam…”
Overton was the first one at the window. “Oh, dear God,” he said.
By the time Coffee and Jackson and the others came out of the Capitol onto the steps, Maria Hester had bled to death. The shot that Sam thought to have missed, had struck her instead, severing the big artery under her arm. Coffee couldn’t remember the name of it. But he’d seen men die on a battlefield, from just such a wound.
Of the assailant, there was no trace, beyond spots of blood and broken teeth. Houston had, understandably, paid the man no further attention once he realized his wife had been shot.
“Put a five thousand dollar reward out, in my name,” Jackson ordered. His face was pale as a sheet, and he was trembling with rage. “Dead or alive.”
Coffee nodded. Medical orderlies had arrived, by now, and were tending to Maria Hester. To her corpse, rather. Or trying to. Houston was still holding her body, his face blank. His own clothes were soaked with her blood, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“Anything else, immediately?”
“Yes.” Jackson swallowed. Just a reflex, to control his fury. This was no feigned Andy Jackson tantrum, either. Coffee knew the signs. This was the real thing, the rage of a man famous all over the frontier for his capacity for violence.
“Yes,” he repeated. “Just remember that I’d already made my decision.”
Coffee hissed. “Andy, you can’t give that speech this afternoon. In your state—”
“Watch me.”
The speech was as bad as Coffee feared. Not the words themselves, so much. It was the tone, and, worst of all, the coda that Jackson added that had never been part of his written text.
—the basest, meanest scoundrel, that ever disgraced the image of his God—nothing too mean or low for Henry Clay to condescend to, secretly to carry his cowardly and base purpose—
—he is personally void of good morals, and politically a reckless demagogue, ambitious and regardless of truth when it comes in the way of his ambition—
That the words he spoke were all true, in Coffee’s opinion, made no difference. All the assiduous work that Andy had done in Washington since he was elected senator two years earlier—and done exceedingly well—were washed away. The suave and sophisticated political leader that the capital’s elite had come to know and even admire was gone; the frontier half-savage that they feared, risen to the surface.
It didn’t help that he’d ended his speech by referring the Speaker of the House to “all the laws which govern and regulate the conduct of men of honor.” Which amounted, under the circumstances, to a challenge to a duel, should Clay choose to take exception to his remarks.
To be sure, Clay himself had been known to make similar noises in the course of public controversies. But “noises” were all they were; just typical Clay theatrics, that nobody took in earnest.
Coming from Jackson, the words were taken dead seriously. The senator from Tennessee was one of the most notorious duelists in America.
Clay made no public response, of course. Since he hadn’t been present in the Senate when Jackson gave the speech, he could ignore it. To do otherwise would be politically foolish, and personally…
Quite possibly fatal.
Besides, he was too relieved by the latest news to give much thought to Jackson.
Washington, D.C.
November 8, 1834
“Well, breathe easy, gentlemen,” said Adam Beatty, as soon as he entered the dining room of the boardinghouse. “They found him.”
Henry Clay, who had been slumped in a chair gazing out the window, came erect immediately. “They caught the bastard?”
Beatty shook his head. “Well, no, they didn’t catch him. It looks like he made his escape from the city. But they know for sure who did it. No question, apparently.”
He smiled so widely it was almost a grin. “What’s important is… He wasn’t one of ours. A Radical, it seems. One of Crawford’s people. Well, not directly. From what I was told, there’s no evidence he was active in Crawford’s campaign. But those were definitely his sympathies.”
Most of the other men in the room were starting to smile, too. Porter wasn’t, though—and he was glad to see that Clay wasn’t, either. In fact, Clay’s expression was darkening fast.
“No, Mr. Beatty!” the Speaker snapped. “What’s ‘important’ here is that an innocent young woman was foully murdered on the very steps of our nation’s Capitol. What in Sam Hill is wrong with you?”
That wiped the smiles off. Clay glared around the table. “For the sake of all that’s holy, gentlemen. Yes, I want to be in the White House, and you want me there. But if I ever see you gloating again because a young woman’s murder can’t hurt us politically, I shall ask you to leave my company at once. And don’t return. Is that understood?”
The nods came as fast as the smiles had vanished. Clay could be as gracious and charming as anyone in the world, when he wanted to be—which he usually did. But there was a very sharp edge to him, also, as any number of rambunctious young Congressmen had learned when they thought heedlessly to cross lances with the Speaker of the House. Clay had not dominated that very unsubmissive chamber of legislators for years by being unable or unwilling to crack the whip, when need be.
Beatty had taken a seat, now, doing everything in his power to look as inconspicuous as possible.
There was perhaps half a minute of strained silence. Then, sighing, Clay slumped back in his chair again.
“Henry, I’m sorry—” Beatty began.
Clay waved off the apology. “Never mind, Adam. Didn’t mean to bite your head off. It’s just… Dear God, what a horrible thing to have happen. I think Maria Hester was the President’s favorite child, too, even if he’d never admit it. I don’t want to think what he’s going through, right now.”
Johnston made a face. “She was certainly my favorite of his daughters. The other, Eliza…”
He left off the rest. Eliza Hay, Monroe’s oldest daughter, was rather notorious in Washington. A very attractive and intelligent woman, to be sure. Also very vain, and given to being haughty and sarcastic. Maria Hester had been much the more charming of the two.
Silence, again, for a minute or so. Then, Clay sat up straighter in his chair.
“Very well. The needs of the nation continue, after all. So what’s the news, Adam?”
This time—very wisely—Beatty gave his report with neither smiles nor commentary. “It’s been clearly established that the culprit was a certain Andrew Clark. From a family—rather prominent, it seems—in Savannah, Georgia. His father owns a large plantation in the area.”
“Clearly established, how?” Porter asked.
Beatty shook his head. “I don’t know the details, Peter. I got the news from a reliable source in the War Department. But there are definitely eyewitnesses, to the man’s making threats about Houston. Had been since he arrived in the city a fortnight ago, it seems. Nobody took much notice of it, because…”
He shrugged. There were plenty of taverns in some quarters of the capital, patronized by southern gentlemen, where damning the traitor Sam Houston and wishing all manner of ill upon him went with practically every round of whiskey. Nobody took much notice of it, not even the ones doing the damning and cursing. That type of southern gentleman issued blood-curdling threats routinely, on every controversial subject imaginable, as casually as other men commented on the weather.
“The description fits, too,” Beatty continued, “all the way down to that bizarre hat and cloak. And when the hat was shown to the man’s landlady, she identified it as being his.”
“What’s the connection to Crawford?” asked Johnston.
“Nothing direct, as I said. He doesn’t seem to have been active in the campaign. It’s more a matter of being an extreme Radical.”
Porter grunted. “Why call him ‘a Crawford man,’ then? More likely to be an admirer of John Randolph.”
Obviously still smarting from Clay’s rebuke, Beatty opened his mouth and closed it. His expression was a bit like that of a stubborn child, wisely silent after a parent’s chastisement but not having changed his mind any.
Clay’s broad mouth quirked into something that bordered on a smile. “Oh, fine, Adam. Say it.”
Beatty’s words came out in something of a rush. “Look, Henry, I apologize if my earlier remark was unseemly. But, blast it, it’s true. It would have been a disaster if this bastard had been associated with us. As it is…”
Johnston picked up the cue. “Just being a known extreme Radical is enough. Who cares what he thought of Crawford himself, Peter? Much less Randolph. Randolph’s not the Radical candidate for President. Crawford is. That’s what counts. Everybody’s furious about this, regardless of what they thought about Sam Houston. But it won’t come down on our heads.”
“In fact,” Beatty added, “it makes Jackson’s grotesque performance yesterday look worse than ever.”
Clay gave him a sharp look. Not a hostile one, though, more in the way of cold calculation. “You think so?”
Beatty’s detestable hearty bluffness was returning, alas. “For sure and certain, Henry! Why—the man practically threatened to kill you, and you had nothing to do with it at all. So why’d he attack you, instead of Crawford?”
Porter tightened his jaws. That had to be one of the stupidest comments he’d ever heard. The reason Jackson had gone after Clay instead of Crawford—could even a dimwit not grasp this?—was because Clay had helped fund the Crittenden expedition, and Crawford had had nothing to do with it. That had been the subject of Jackson’s speech. He’d said nothing about Mrs. Houston’s murder.
On the other hand…
Grudgingly, Porter allowed that Beatty might be right, if not for the reasons he advanced. Whatever else, the murder had horrified everyone in Washington. The reasons behind it meant less than the sheer brutality of the deed itself. Which meant that the emotional reaction was likely to spill against…
Ironically enough, Andrew Jackson, the man the dead woman and her husband had named their firstborn son after. Not because anyone thought Jackson had any connection to the murderer but simply because he, more than any other candidate, exemplified that capacity for violence in the first place. Did a nation which had just witnessed the daughter of its President shot down on the steps of the Capitol want that president’s successor to be a man who’d killed another in a duel? A man who’d once held a gunfight in a hotel with the Benton brothers?
“It’s over,” Beatty predicted. “It’s all over but the shouting.”
Clay’s expression was darkening again. Hastily, Johnston interjected: “Well, no, Adam. There’s a funeral first, remember? Tomorrow.”
“Oh. Yes, of course.”
Later that afternoon, Clay spoke in private to Porter.
“Jackson put up five thousand dollars for that reward, am I right?”
Porter nodded.
“Fine. Then I’ll put up ten.”
Porter started to shake his head, but Henry had already seen the problem.
“No, no, that won’t do. It would make it seem as if I were engaged in a petty contest with Jackson. But I can put up an equal amount, I think. See to it, would you, Peter?”
John Quincy Adams worked later than usual, that day, well into the evening. Not because there was anything particularly pressing to be done, but simply because he couldn’t think of anything better to do.
By eight o’clock, he decided it was time to go home. On his way out, however, a sudden impulse led him to the president’s office. Monroe was not in, having spent the entire day in the private quarters of the house with his wife and surviving daughter, and his grandchildren. And Houston.
The same impulse—half-sensed; not understood—led Adams into the office itself, and to the window behind the president’s desk that Monroe like to look through.
Perhaps a minute later, Adams discovered himself sitting in the president’s chair. He’d been so lost in his thoughts that he hadn’t even realized he’d done so.
He began to rise immediately, but froze halfway through. That half-felt, not-understood impulse had come into sudden focus. So, sighing softly, he sat back down again.
There was still a duty to be performed this day. Not one that John Quincy Adams wanted to perform; nor one that suited him well at all. But, whatever else, he was not a man who had ever shirked duty.
He spent perhaps an hour lost in his thoughts again. Only a small sound at the doorway brought him out of them.
Turning his head, he saw that James Monroe was standing there. Instantly flushing, Adams rose from the chair.
“Mr. President. Ah… my apologies. I don’t know what I was thinking. Please excuse my impertinence—”
“It’s fine, John,” Monroe said softly. He came into the room, waving his hand a bit. “Sit back down again. Why not? You may very well be sitting in that chair for four years, come March. Possibly eight. No reason not to see if it suits you.”
Monroe’s face seemed more drawn than usual, but it was hard to tell. The president was a man with such self-control that he would have been the envy of any Roman stoic.
Adams didn’t know quite what to say. He’d already visited the family, earlier that day, to extend his condolences. Repeating them again would seem…
Not like John Quincy Adams. For the same reason, the impulse to ask Monroe how he was managing died stillborn. For all the mutual respect between them, there had never been much in the way of personal intimacy between Adams and the president. Monroe was rarely given to such; and Adams, still less.
Monroe was at the window now, looking out over the darkened city. Not that he could actually see it. With the lamp in the corner shining against the window pane, he could see only his own reflection.
Fortunately, it was always possible to ask about women. “How is Mrs. Monroe doing, sir?”
“Not well, as you might imagine,” the president replied softly. “Her health has not been good for some time, as you know. This…”
He drew in a long, deep breath. “This was as bad as anything that could have happened. Fortunately, Eliza is with her, and bearing up well.”
Adams nodded. As was true of most people, he didn’t much care for the president’s oldest daughter—only daughter, now—but she was certainly a woman of strong character.
“And Mr. Houston?”
Monroe took another long, deep breath. “I’m more concerned about Sam, immediately.”
“Is he…”
Monroe shook his head. “No, John. He isn’t drunk. I don’t believe he’s done so much as glance at a bottle of whiskey. He’s spent most of the past day with his son, trying to explain to a four-year-old that he’ll never see his mother again.”
There might have been a slight catch to Monroe’s voice, right there at the end. A very subtle thing, though, if it had been there at all.
Adams frowned. “Then… What’s the nature of your concern, if I might ask?”
Monroe’s head turned, half-facing Adams. “Never forget that Sam Houston is Scots-Irish, John. Perhaps the most warm-hearted and good-natured Scots-Irishman who ever lived, true. But he’s still of that stock. Which is one that is given to rage, and dark furies, and forgives very little and that slowly if at all.”
“Ah. You think he’ll take out after the murderer?” A worse possibility occurred to Adams. Andrew Jackson wouldn’t be the only man who’d think to lash out at a political opponent as detested as Henry Clay.
Monroe might have smiled slightly, then. If so, it came and went almost instantly.
“No, John. Don’t underestimate my son-in-law. I’ve come to know him quite well, these past years. He’s a man who thinks… very large thoughts. No, he’ll not seek his revenge on the man who murdered his wife. Should he happen to encounter him, of course, he’d certainly kill him. But he’ll let the law handle it, otherwise.”
He was silent, for a moment: “But I’m much afraid, in the mood he’s in, he will seek revenge on the nation he holds responsible for Maria Hester’s death in the first place.”
Adams’ eyes widened. “But how… Ah.”
That, too, suddenly brought many things into focus. “He’s right, actually, Mr. President. In a way, at least.”
Monroe took yet another one of those long, slow breaths. “Yes, I know he is.” For the first time, a genuine sadness entered his voice. “He most certainly is. Only a nation—a republic, to make it worse—that was mad enough to place slavery at its foundation, could produce such a monster as Andrew Clark. And the madness is growing, John, year by year. Fueled by greed; the greed glowing hotter as more and more cant and hypocrisy is piled upon it; the flames then fanned by men like John Calhoun. With, now, even men like Henry Clay aiding and abetting the madness, for no purpose more sublime than personal ambition.”
Another, long slow breath. Then, quietly, sadly: “I have often wondered if my mentor and friend Thomas Jefferson was right, when he foresaw a terrible vengeance by a just God. Now, I know he was. I saw the proof of it yesterday, in my daughter’s bloody corpse.”
There might have been a slight tremor in the last few words. Perhaps not. Monroe’s stoicism was truly exceptional.
“And yet…” The president shrugged. “And yet it continues, since very few men—and I am not included among them—have the courage to stand squarely against it. And, again, for no better reason than greed.” His lips twisted a bit. “Well, perhaps that’s too harsh. Economic and financial strain, more often—but is that really any better than naked greed?”
He’d had his hands clasped behind his back. Now he brought them to the fore, and looked down upon them. “I can see my daughter’s blood on my own hands, if I look closely enough. I am in debt, as I’m sure you know. Most southern gentlemen are, especially if they’ve spent as many years in public service as I have.”
Adams had known that, of Monroe’s personal situation, although he didn’t know any of the details. Public office was not very renumerative in the American republic, even in high posts, and many of the expenses had to be born by the office-holder out of his own purse. Unless a man was an outright thief—which Monroe himself was certainly not, though some of the men who’d risen to prominence with him might be so accused—he’d soon enough find his personal finances badly strained.
Adams himself suffered from the problem, despite the frugality of his Puritan New England upbringing. Almost no southern slave-owning gentleman ever managed to get out from under a small mountain of debt, even if they devoted themselves entirely to their plantation. The manner of their lives, their habits, their customs—not to mention the vagaries of any agriculture, and their dependence on English financiers and brokers—made it effectively impossible.
A few managed. George Washington had gotten completely out of debt—and had turned away from plantation agriculture as the source of his sustenance, to make sure that he’d remain debtless. So, he was one of the very few slave-owners who’d freed all his slaves in his will. A few others had done so, here and there. At least one of them had then freed all his slaves and moved to Ohio so he could get away from slavery altogether.
But such were a rarity. Most southern gentlemen were in debt from the time they reached their maturity to the day they were lowered into their graves—and the debts were then inherited by their offspring. Which meant that the same profligate, wasteful slave-based plantation economy that had placed them in lifelong debt to begin with would continue on, generation after generation. So long as a man retained his plantation and his slaves, he could, at the very least, find a creditor willing to lend him more money.
“So,” Monroe continued, “I shall no more be able to free my own slaves upon retiring from this office than Thomas was before me. One you set Mammon upon your shoulders, ridding yourself of the demon becomes impossible. Unless you’re prepared to become a pauper, at least, which few men are. And I am not one of them.”
There was more of fatalism in Monroe’s tone than Adams had ever detected before. Not surprisingly, perhaps, given that the man was coming to the end of many decades of a life given over to the service of the republic. In four months, James Monroe would become a private citizen; and, now at the age of sixty-five, would almost certainly remain one for the rest of his life. Whatever he could do, he had done. Whatever he had failed to do, he could not do now. Whatever he had harmed, he could no longer repair.
None of which was true of John Quincy Adams himself.
And so, now, it was time. As difficult as the task might be, for a man like Adams. But he would not shirk his duty.
“Do you think I would make a good President?” he asked abruptly. Then, raising his hand sharply: “Please, James. I know it’s an uncivil question. But I really need your opinion. I can’t think of any man who’d know better. Certainly not one who no longer has any personal stake in the issue.”
Monroe turned from the window to face Adams squarely. His hands, as if by automatic reflex, clasped behind his back again.
“Yes, I understand.” He thought for a moment. Not, obviously, to ponder the question, but simply pondering the right words for an answer.
“You’d not be a bad one, John. In some respects—foreign affairs, for a certainty—an excellent one. But, overall… Let me put it this way. I do not think you’d make the president that the republic needs, in this time, this place in our history. You’re too much the intellectual, too much the executive, too much the manager.”
Adams grimaced ruefully. “I’m certainly not much of a politician.”
“No, you’re not. Although—” Monroe smiled, for the first time since he entered the room. “I do recommend you spare yourself your usual Puritanical self-condemnation, John. Consider, rather, that your many other fine qualities—superb ones, to speak frankly—have allowed you to reach a position of influence in our nation that precious few politicians have ever achieved, regardless of their skill. That is hardly something to sneer at.”
Adams issued a soft grunt. As it happened, he’d been thinking much the same thoughts, this past hour. The sole consolation for what was coming.
“But that’s not even the point,” Monroe continued. “What the republic needs now is not another politician, either. Henry Clay is the most accomplished and talented politician in the nation. But—being as frank and open as I can—I’d far rather see you sitting in that chair for the next four or eight years than see Clay sitting there.”
Monroe looked aside, for a moment, now studying the whale oil lamp sitting on a small table in the corner of the office. There was nothing remarkable about the lamp itself, except for being finer than most, with a decorative glass base and an attractice pear-shaped font. It seemed more as if he were simply trying to extract the light from it.
“You would make a fine president, John, if we lived in a time when the nation simply needed to be steered a course through the inevitable fog of public affairs. So would Henry Clay, being fair to the man. He’s not a brute, after all. A very fine man, in a number of ways, and many of his views are ones I share myself. The problem is simply that he can’t—never could—control his naked ambition. But if we lived in different times, his talents would probably make up for it, once that ambition was satisfied. But we don’t live in such a time. I had hopes—delusions, perhaps—that we did, when I came into this office. But I know now, eight years later, that we are entering turbulent waters, not simply foggy ones. And the turbulence will get worse, before it is all over. Much worse, I fear.”
Adams nodded. Being a rather accomplished poet, he’d have used less pedestrian metaphors himself. But… perhaps that lay at the heart of the matter. Monroe was an excellent politician, and Adams was not. If the president’s imagery was mundane, so was the nature of politics, in the end. Prosaic as it might be, the language was apt.
“Jackson, then,” he stated.
Monroe turned back to look at him. “You’ve read Jackson’s speech of yesterday by now, I’m sure.”
It was not a question. The chance that John Quincy Adams wouldn’t have, within a day, read—no, studied—a major speech by a major political figure, was so small as to be laughable.
In fact, Adams did laugh. Once, softly. “Oh, yes. Of course.”
“And your opinion?” The president jerked his head. “Leaving aside that perhaps grotesque coda.”
Adams scowled. “Grotesque, indeed.”
But he forced himself away from that comfort. It was time for the heart of the truth, and that alone.
“It was a magnificent speech, Mr. President. In the main. But what else really matters now?”
“Nothing,” Monroe stated flatly.
“Yes. Truly magnificent. In fact…” It was Adams’ turn to take a slow, deep breath. “I shall not be surprised—not that I’ll live long enough to know—if posterity records it as the most important speech given in the United States in this entire decade.”
Monroe looked away again, pursing his lips. “I hadn’t thought of it, in those terms. But… you could well be right.”
He turned his head back, his expression suddenly very stern. “Enough, John. It’s time for you to give me your opinion. Simply to say it out loud, if nothing else.”
Adams nodded, and levered himself out of the chair. There was no reason to stay in it, any longer.
“What I believe, Mr. President, is that we are entering Jackson’s time. For good or ill—or both, most likely. Truth be told, I’ve had that sense for some years, now. Resenting it deeply, to be honest, but still sensing that it was probably true. Now, I see it cannot be avoided at all. The difference the speech makes is very simple. On the eve of that time, the man who is best suited to lead the nation through has it revealed himself to be, in every important particular, a man of deep and abiding principle. Even when those principles bring him to a distasteful conclusion, and one that requires him to stand against many—perhaps most—of his own followers.”
He took another one of those slow, deep breaths that seemed, that night, to be a requirement for occupying the office. “That being the case, for me to continue to oppose his entry into this very chamber, would be—in the end, when all is said and done—no more sublime a deed than whatever Henry Clay is plotting tonight.” Harshly: “Ambition, nothing more.”
Monroe cocked his head a little. “That’s very well said, John. And let me take this moment, since I may never be able to do so again, to tell you that you are a man I much respect and admire.”
Adams jerked a little nod of the head. “Thank you, sir.”
“Will you allow me to put it in my own terms?” Monroe issued his second smile of the evening. Like the first, it was a thin and fleeting thing, with more than a trace of sadness in it.
“Yes, of course.”
“I’ve had years—decades—to ponder the matter. The last eight of them, as the nation’s chief executive. In the end, just as our Roman forebears knew, republics stand or fall on virtue. Simply that, nothing else. Policies might be wrong, but policies can be corrected. Let virtue fail, the republic fails. Yes, it’s Jackson’s time, for good or ill—so let Jackson take his rightful place. Help him or oppose him on any particular issue or question, as you will. But I can foresee no worse disaster than if, by clashing, the two principle men of virtue in today’s American republic allow another man to slide by them and take this office. I disagree with many of Jackson’s opinions and views, as you know. But I can live with Jackson. The republic can live with Jackson. Right, wrong, indifferent or just plain mad, Jackson always has virtue. Henry Clay has none at all.”
Adams jerked another little nod. Then, smiled. “You understand, Mr. President, that after Senator Jackson’s speech yesterday, it is very likely that Henry Clay will slide by us anyway.”
Monroe shook his head firmly. “No, John. He won’t slide by you. He’ll win enough votes, and thus by the rules established by our Constitution, come to occupy this office. But the Constitution does not embody the nation’s virtue, simply its political principles. So long as you and Jackson stand against him—clearly, sharply—then the nation will not be confused, except momentarily.”
The president shrugged. “It’s impossible, for any republic that lasts for more than a few decades, to avoid the occasional Alcibiades winning the favor of the populace for a time. That matters little, so long as the republic does not come to see Alcibiades as a man of principle.”
He waved his hand at the window, through which nothing could be seen except the reflection of the chamber’s own light. “Let Clay enjoy—if that’s the term—his four years of triumph. I think he’ll find it turns sour on him, soon enough. Even faster—if men of principle stand their ground—will he find the nation’s favor turning sour also. It’s one thing to gain office by pandering to prejudice, unreason, and blind fury. Quite another, to guide a nation based on them. The first can be done, yes. The second, not at all.”
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