V 
 
 JistriDiaiMy ii^rjiitoQ^i. 
 
 : 
 
MONUMENT 
 
 TO THE MEMORY OF 
 
 GENERAL ANDREW JACKSON: 
 
 CONTAINING TWENTY-FIVE 
 
 EULOGIES AND SERMONS 
 
 DELIVERED ON OCCASION OF HIS DEATH. 
 
 TO WHICH IS ADDED 
 
 AN APPENDIX, 
 
 CONTAINING GENERAL JACKSON'S PROCLAMATION, HIS FAREWELL 
 ADDRESS, AND A CERTIFIED COPY OF HIS LAST WILL. 
 
 THE WHOLE PRECEDED BY 
 
 A SHORT SKETCH OF HIS LIFE. 
 
 COMPILED BY B. M. DUSENBERY. 
 
 TROY: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY SAMUEL HANNA. 
 18 46. 
 
277** 
 
 
 Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1845, by 
 B. M. DUSENBERY, 
 
 in the office of the clerk of the District Court of the United States, in and for 
 the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 
 
 lit 
 
 STEREOTYPED BY B. M. DUSENBERY. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The following work has been executed from a desire to 
 erect a permanent literary Monument to the memory of 
 Jackson. It contains the views of many of the ablest, most 
 learned, and most worthy men in the Republic, respecting 
 the public and private life of the General, his character, and 
 conduct in all the relations which he was called upon by 
 God and his country to sustain. In this point of view, the 
 eulogies and addresses, contained in this volume, must cer- 
 tainly have great value in the estimation not only of the political 
 and historical student, but in that of his countrymen gen- 
 erally, who have never been backward in acknowledging his 
 worth and ability by marks of unbounded confidence. 
 
 General Jackson affords one of the most striking examples, 
 recorded in history, of a man rising from the humble walks 
 of private life to the most exalted station in the world, by 
 dint of perseverance, firmness, integrity, and decision of char- 
 acter. His life, therefore, is full of instruction for the people. 
 Its events form a study to which it is impossible they should 
 give too much attention. No other man ever evinced so 
 much knowledge of the character of the American people. 
 No public man ever appealed so frequently and boldly to the 
 
 (3) 
 
iv PREFACE. 
 
 people for support in his public acts ; and none was ever so 
 nobly and enthusiastically sustained. Party spirit, of course, 
 misrepresented his character and actions, while he was at the 
 head of affairs ; but the moment he resigned the reins of 
 government, his merit and ability were almost universally 
 acknowledged ; and when death had set the seal of immor- 
 tality upon his name, it was unhesitatingly enrolled among 
 the great and good of all ages. How unanimous was the 
 verdict in his favour, the discourses contained in this volume 
 will show. They speak one language — that of unqualified 
 eulogy. 
 
 The editor of this volume is bound to acknowledge with 
 gratitude the courtesy and favour with which his design 
 has been regarded, and the prompt and cheerful aid which 
 he has received from all quarters. Persons at a distance 
 have forwarded materials for the work, unasked, and all 
 whose assistance has been solicited have responded to the 
 call with alacrity. 
 
 The memoir of General Jackson, prefixed to the eulogies, 
 though necessarily brief, has been compiled from the most 
 authentic materials, and gives a summary view of the great 
 events and actions of his life. It was deemed essential to 
 the perfect understanding of the eulogies, which frequently 
 refer to the events of the General's life, as universally known. 
 However well known they may be, it was necessary, in order 
 to render the present work complete in itself, that a memoir 
 should be included in it. The editor believes that it will be 
 found sufficiently minute and accurate to shed the necessary 
 light on the frequent allusions which occur in the eulogies 
 and discourses, and to render the whole work the most com- 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 plete view which has ever been presented of the life and 
 character of Jackson. 
 
 The editor is particularly indebted to R. B. Castleman, Esq., 
 Clerk of the Court at Nashville, and his deputy, Mr. Phineas 
 Garrett, for furnishing a certified copy from the record, of 
 the will of General Jackson, as well as to A. V. S. Linds- 
 ley, Esq., of Nashville, for his kind offices in relation to the 
 obtaining of that invaluable paper. 
 
 To all who have in any manner contributed towards the 
 successful completion of the work, the editor returns his 
 grateful thanks. They will have the satisfaction of knowing 
 that they, as well as the editor, have contributed towards 
 the erection of a literary monument to the memory of him, 
 whom his countrymen will ever delight to honour. 
 
CONTENTS. . 
 
 Biographical Sketch P a g e 9 
 
 Eulogy by Hon. George Bancroft Washington City, June 27 33 
 
 " Hon. George M. Dallas Philadelphia, June 26 52 
 
 » Hon. Benjamin F. Butler . . .New York, June 24 59 
 
 " Hon. Levi Woodbury Portsmouth, N. H., July 2 70 
 
 " General Benj. C. Howard . . .Baltimore, July 1 87 
 
 " Hon. John Van Buren Albany, 5* Y., June 30 96 
 
 « Hon. Wilson M'Candless . . .Pittsburgh, July 17 103 
 
 " Hon. M. H. M'Allister Savannah, July 8 118 
 
 " A. F. Morrison, Esq Indianapolis, June 28 133 
 
 « Hon. Francis R. Shunk Harrisburg, July 24 144 
 
 M Hon. Ellis Lewis Lancaster, Pa.. June 26 155 
 
 " Hon. Pliny Merrick Boston, July 9 167 
 
 «' Hon. Hugh A. Garland Petersburg, Va., July 12 183 
 
 '« John A. Bolles, Esq Lowell, Mass., July 18 212 
 
 " Hon. Hendrick B. Wright. . .Wilkesbarre, July 4 235 
 
 " Hon. Andrew Stevenson Richmond, Va., June 28 249 
 
 » Thomas L. Smith, Esq Louisville, Ky., July 3 272 
 
 « W. M'Cartney, Esq Easton, Pa., June 28 280 
 
 " Dr. Samuel A. Cartwright.. .Natchez, Miss., July 12 292 
 
 " Hon. William Irvin Lancaster, Ohio, July 12 306 
 
 " J. G. Harris, Esq Charlotte, Tenn., July 17 316 
 
 Rev. D. D. Lore Pottsville, Pa., July 10 333 
 
 Sermon by Rev. G. W. Bethune Philadelphia, July 6 343 
 
 " Rev. Thomas Brainerd " " 356 
 
 Appendix: 
 
 Proclamation 371 
 
 Farewell Address 389 
 
 Last Will and Testament 407 
 
 (7) 
 


 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 
 
 OP 
 
 GENERAL ANDREW JACKSON. 
 
 To the lessons inculcated upon the youthful mind of Andrew 
 Jackson by his exemplary mother, are to be attributed much of 
 the fixed opposition to British oppression arid tyranny, and the 
 determined defence and support of the rights of his country, 
 which distinguished him throughout the whole of his eventful 
 career. His grandfather, who was born in the province of 
 Ulster, in Ireland, was descended of Scotch ancestors, and at- 
 tached to their manners, language, and religion. He had four 
 sons, the youngest of whom married Elizabeth Hutchinson, and 
 emigrated from Ireland in the year 1765, bringing with him his 
 two young sons, Hugh and Robert. He landed at Charleston, 
 and purchased a tract of land, with three of* his old neighbours, 
 in what was called the Waxhaw settlement, in South Carolina. 
 There, on the 15th of March, 1767, Andrew Jackson was born. 
 
 His father died about the same time, leaving his name to his 
 young son, and the care of her three children to his wife, who 
 faithfully and successfully executed the duties which thus de- 
 volved upon her. Her youngest son she intended for the 
 church, and therefore aimed at giving him more than the com- 
 mon school education which his older brothers received. The 
 
 (9) 
 
10 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 direction of his studies was committed to the care of Mr. 
 Humphries, the superintendent of a flourishing academy at the 
 Waxhaw meeting-house. There he remained until the near 
 approach of the ravages of the Revolutionary war rendered it 
 necessary for the young Jacksons to leave the country or choose 
 sides with the combatants. The cause of their country was 
 their own. The sufferings of their grandfather at the siege 
 of Carrickfergus, and the oppressions endured by the labour- 
 ing poor at the hands of the proud Irish nobility, had fur- 
 nished themes to their mother for conversation over the win- 
 ter's fire ; their tears had flowed in compassion, while their 
 antipathy to the cause of the woes they wept over became in- 
 corporated with their nature. Their mother had accompanied 
 her husband to America, that they might escape from the ruth- 
 less tyranny of their English oppressors, and she readily en- 
 couraged the ardour of their patriotic devotion, and indulged 
 them in attending the drill and general musters of the neigh- 
 bourhood. 
 
 In the year 1779, the British invaded South Carolina, under 
 General Prevost. Charleston must have fallen if that officer 
 had marched rapidly forward ; but he halted on the way, and 
 gave time to the citizens to prepare for defence, and to General 
 Lincoln to advance to their assistance. Prevost soon after re- 
 turned to Savannah, leaving the post at Stono Ferry in. charge 
 of a garrison, which Lincoln determined to cut off. He ad- 
 vanced against it on the 20th of June, with twelve hundred 
 men, but a part of Jbis plan failed, and the attempt was unsuc- 
 cessful. In this battle, Hugh Jackson, the general's oldest 
 brother, lost his life, from the excessive heat of the weather, 
 and the fatigues of the day. He had marched to battle as a 
 volunteer in the corps of the gallant Colonel Davie, who was 
 severely wounded in the conflict. A desire to avenge the death of 
 his brother was thus added to the other causes of enmity towards 
 the brutal invaders of his country, and Andrew, at the age of 
 fourteen, accompanied his brother Robert to the American 
 
GENERAL ANDREW JACKSON. 11 
 
 camp, and engaged actively in the cause of freedom. The Bri- 
 tish commanders in the commencement of the struggle had 
 promised that the people might remain in peace in their homes, 
 on condition of giving their parol not to take part in the war. 
 But w T hen active resistance had ceased, and the state appeared 
 to be reduced to its former allegiance, they issued a proclama- 
 tion requiring the inhabitants to enrol themselves in the militia, 
 and be prepared to perform active service for the cause of the 
 king. This act of injustice roused the spirit of resistance, and 
 caused many true patriots to gather round the standards erected 
 by the noble partisans Marion, Sumter, Pickens, and Davies. 
 Almost all of the Waxhaw settlers who engaged in the partisan 
 warfare, united under Colonel Davies. A plan was arranged 
 by Sumter and Davies, which had for its object the destruction 
 of the British garrisons at Rocky Mount and Hanging Rock. 
 Sumter made three bold attacks on the former post on the 30th 
 of July, 17S0, but without success. Meanwhile Davies, who 
 had been watching the garrison in Hanging Rock, cut off a 
 foraging party consisting of three companies of tories. Sixty 
 horses and one hundred muskets, secured by this success, formed 
 a very acceptable addition to the stables and military chest of 
 Sumter, who, soon after, united his forces with those of Davies. 
 The two commanders next marched against Hanging Rock. 
 The contest was long and bloody. At length the badly dis- 
 ciplined troops of Sumter, finding themselves in possession of 
 the greater part of the enemy's camp, and supposing the victory 
 to be won, took to plundering and carousing. But the remnant 
 of the garrison refused to surrender, and Sumter could get only 
 two hundred of his men to continue the fight. Finding that 
 the remainder of his men were rapidly becoming intoxicated, he 
 reluctantly gave up the victory he had fairly won. 
 
 This was the first field of Andrew Jackson. Though but 
 thirteen years of age, he fought like a veteran, and the Wax- 
 haw settlers on that day suffered heavy loss. The unfortunate 
 result of the fight, too, must have strongly impressed upon his 
 
12 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OP 
 
 mind the value of strict military regulations, and contributed to 
 form the love of discipline which after-wards characterized his 
 operations as a general, and which produced the declaration of 
 martial law when perfidy was suspected at New Orleans. 
 When Cornwallis advanced towards Charlotte, the Americans, 
 inferior in numbers and discipline, and unable to cope with the 
 well-armed and well-appointed veterans of the British army, 
 retired into North Carolina. 
 
 When Cornwallis had crossed the Yadkin, the Waxhaw set- 
 tlers boldly returned to their homes. In these times of trouble 
 the laws were silent, and crime went unpunished and wrongs 
 unrevenged. Active whigs dared not spend a night in their 
 own houses, unguarded, without danger of surprise and death 
 at the hands of their savage enemies. The young Jacksons 
 were constantly mounted and armed, and incurring every danger 
 with their patriotic friends and neighbours. On one occasion, a 
 noted patriot captain, named Sands, desired to spend a night 
 with his family ; and eight soldiers, among whom were Robert 
 and Andrew Jackson, constituted his guard. In the night, a 
 band of tories was heard advancing to capture the house and its 
 inhabitants. A British deserter, who was on the watch, gave 
 the alarm to Andrew Jackson, who immediately seized his gun 
 and ran out to meet one division of the band. Having hailed, 
 and receiving no answer, he put his gun through the fork of an 
 apple-tree, and fired upon the enemy. A volley was returned 
 which killed the soldier near his side. Jackson then went into 
 the house, while another division of the enemy advancing to 
 attack on the opposite side, mistook the fire of their friends for 
 a volley from the house, and began to return it. Thus they 
 continued firing, partly upon their friends and partly upon the 
 house, until an officer, who was in the neighbourhood, gallopped 
 towards the house alone, sounding a cavalry charge on his 
 trumpet. The tories became frightened and retired. Jackson 
 had commenced firing from the door after re-entering the house, 
 
GENERAL ANDREW JACKSON. 13 
 
 where two of his companions were shot down. He was then 
 but fourteen years old. 
 
 Rawdon, who was actively engaged in making a desert of 
 the country around Camden, was no sooner advised of the re- 
 turn of the Waxhaw settlers, than he determined to capture 
 or destroy them. Major Coffin was intrusted with the execu- 
 tion of his plan. He succeeded in surprising the settlers, al- 
 though they were collected together at the Waxhaw meeting- 
 house; eleven were taken prisoners, and the rest escaped with 
 great difficulty. Among those who fled were the two Jack- 
 sons. They continued during the night in a thicket, but left it 
 on the following morning for the purpose of procuring food. 
 They were surprised at the house of Lieutenant Crawford, by 
 a party of dragoons and tories, who had been guided thither 
 by a tory named Johnson. While the troops were actively 
 engaged in demolishing the furniture of the house and the 
 clothing of its inhabitants, the commanding officer, whose boots 
 had been mudded in crossing a creek, commanded the younger 
 Jackson to clean them. He received an indignant refusal, and 
 a demand for the treatment due to a prisoner of war. The 
 cowardly ruffian aimed a blow at his head with his sword, but 
 the young hero parried it with his left hand, upon which he 
 received a severe wound. Robert Jackson for a like refusal 
 received a wound on his head, which was not dressed while he 
 remained a prisoner, and which caused his death a few days 
 after his release. This was effected after the battle of Cam- 
 den, by a partisan captain named Walker, who gave thirteen 
 British prisoners in exchange for the two Jacksons and five of 
 their neighbours. At the time of their release, the two Jack- 
 sons were both infected with the small-pox. The oldest son 
 died, but Andrew was enabled by the natural vigour of his 
 constitution to survive this complication of ills. 
 
 Before he had thoroughly recovered his health, his mother 
 left him on an errand of mercy to the unfortunate captives who 
 were confined in the prison-ships at Charleston. There she 
 2 
 
14 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 caught the fever which raged among the prisoners, and soon 
 after ended her days. Thus Andrew Jackson was left the only 
 survivor of the family of his father, the remainder having been 
 brought to the grave by the ruthless tyranny of the British, 
 *o avoid which he had sought a home in the wilds of Ame- 
 rica. Deprived of the counsel of his excellent mother, and 
 thrown into the society of some of the most extravagant young 
 men of Charleston, who resided at the Waxhaws while the* 
 British held that place, Jackson commenced wasting his patri- 
 mony, and corrupting his habits. 
 
 But foreseeing that by continuing in the mad career he had 
 commenced, he would eventually come to rely for support upon 
 his own unaided exertions, he suddenly checked himself in his 
 course of dissipation, and returned to his studies. The pulpit 
 he now abandoned for the bar, and his legal acquirements were 
 directed by two eminent counsellors, Judge McCay and Colonel 
 Stokes. He had not pursued pleasure more ardently than he 
 now sought for proficiency in his legal studies, and he received 
 a license to practise as an attorney in two years from the time 
 when he devoted his attention to the law. Those two years 
 had been spent at Salisbury, in North Carolina, in which state 
 he continued until 1788. In that year he accompanied Judge 
 McNairy to the western district of North Carolina, comprising 
 what is now the state of Tennessee. The judge had recently- 
 been appointed, and he was going thither to hold his first court. 
 When they reached that district, Jackson found that the young 
 adventurers of the place had become indebted to the merchants, 
 and had conspired to retain in their interest the only lawyer in 
 the country, so that the creditors were unable to prosecute their 
 claims. They joyfully hailed the arrival of another lawyer, 
 and Jackson, on the morning after his arrival, issued seventy 
 writs. Such a prosperous opening was a strong inducement for 
 him to remain in that part of the country, and the attempts made 
 by the debtors to force him to leave it, produced a directly op- 
 posite effect. Fearing to encounter the bold lawyer in a per- 
 
GENERAL ANDREW JACKSON. 15 
 
 sonal attack, these peisons caused him to be assailed by bullies, 
 a class of the most abandoned men, who were accustomed to 
 decide every question by a fight. The first attack of this kind 
 was made by a flax-breaker, remarkable for his strength and 
 brute courage. Jackson reduced him to submission with his 
 own winding-blades. When conversing with a gentleman con- 
 cerning business, a noted bully approached and trod purposely 
 on Jackson's foot. The young lawyer pushed him off, and 
 brought him to the ground with a blow of a slab. The crowd 
 interfered to stop the conflict, but the bully, with horrid impre- 
 cations, snatched a stake from the fence and attempted to re- 
 new the attack. Jackson requested the crowd to stand aside, 
 and moved with a firm step and steady eye towards the ruffian, 
 who, struck with terror, dropped the stake, and fled into the 
 woods. His bold conduct in these attacks convinced his 
 enemies of their inutility, and he was therefore suffered to pro- 
 ceed in the prosecution of his professional duties without 
 molestation. 
 
 His industry and talents recommended him to all the better 
 portion of the community, and even his enemies respected while 
 they feared and hated him. He received the appointment of 
 attorney for the western district, and soon after discovered that 
 enormous frauds had been practised in the North Carolina land 
 office. These he deemed it his duty to expose, and he prose- 
 cuted the perpetrators. The hostility of a large protion of the 
 inhabitants, who were often interested in these fraudulent trans- 
 actions, was by this means drawn down upon his head. 
 
 His business as attorney was divided between Jonesborough, 
 and Nashville, and other settlements on the Cumberland river. 
 Between these places there was a wilderness of two hundred 
 miles, which Jackson crossed twenty-two times in the perform- 
 ance of his duties. The crossing of this wilderness was a task 
 of no little difficulty and danger. The Cherokees and Choc- 
 taws on the south, and the Shawnees on the north, waged 
 almost perpetual warfare with the early settlers, who were in 
 
16 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 this manner accustomed to the use of arms, and skilled in savage 
 tactics. Jackson soon became known as one of the boldest of 
 the brave spirits with which the country abounded, and the fear 
 and respect entertained for him by the Indians is evinced by 
 the names of " Sharp Knife," and " Pointed Arrow," which 
 they applied to him. To the experience he acquired in these 
 journeys, perhaps, is to be attributed much of the success 
 which subsequently attended his operations in the country of 
 the Creeks. 
 
 The distinction which his courage and resolution in these and 
 similar situations had acquired for Jackson was widely extended. 
 He stood high in the estimation of all classes, and his fellow- 
 citizens embraced every opportunity of honouring him with their 
 confidence. He was chosen a member of the convention for 
 the formation of a constitution for the new state of Tennessee, 
 and when that state was admitted into the Union, he was her 
 first representative in Congress. One year afterwards, in 1797, 
 he was chosen a member of the Senate of the United States for 
 the state of Tennessee. He connected himself with the repub- 
 lican party, but resigned in 1799, on account of the great pre- 
 ponderance of the federalists in the Senate. On his return to 
 Tennessee, he took an active part in the election which trans- 
 ferred the executive power from the hands of Mr. Adams to 
 those of Thomas Jefferson. 
 
 He was again called into public life at the age of thirty by 
 his appointment to the bench of the Supreme Court of the state. 
 Though he reluctantly accepted this office, he performed its 
 duties with his usual firmness. The robber, the murderer, and 
 the outlaw, were brought to justice, the innocent and the injured 
 were protected and avenged, and the hitherto despised authority 
 of the court was everywhere respected and acknowledged. 
 
 On the occasion of holding his first court at Jonesborough, 
 an exceedingly strong and ferocious man, named Russell Bean, 
 was indicted for assaulting his child when intoxicated. The 
 sheriff, a timid man, feared to approach him, though he was in 
 
GENERAL ANDREW .TACKSON. 
 
 17 
 
 the court yard, and made to the court the return that Bean 
 would not be taken. Judge Jackson refused to receive the re- 
 turn, and directed the shciff, if necessary, to summon the posse 
 comitatus. The sheriff, when the court adjourned, summoned 
 the judge himself as part of the posse. Jackson procured a 
 loaded pistol, and advanced towards the armed desperado, who 
 was bidding defiance to the laws. 
 
 As Jackson came near him, he began to retreat, but stopped, 
 threw down his arms, and surrendered at the command of the 
 resolute judge. 
 
 John Sevier, the governor of the state, was among the num- 
 ber of his enemies. His enmity to Jackson was naturally 
 shared by the party which supported him, and rose to such a 
 height, that a combination was formed to mob him when he 
 should come to hold his court at Jonesborough, in the fall of 
 IS03. He was so sick on the road as to be scarcely able to 
 sit his horse ; but he learned the reception which awaited him, 
 and pressed forward eagerly to Jonesborough. He was suffer- 
 ing from a high fever when he arrived, and he therefore retired 
 to his room and lay down upon his bed. Shortly after, Colonel 
 Harrison, with a regiment of men, arrived in front of the house, 
 prepared to tar and feather him. He was advised to lock his 
 door, but he arose, threw it wide open, and sent a friend with 
 his compliments to the colonel, to say that his door was open 
 to receive him and his regiment whenever they chose to wait 
 upon him ; and that he hoped the chivalric colonel would lead 
 his men, and not follow them. The message was delivered, the 
 mob dispersed, the colonel apologized for the inconsiderate vio- 
 lence of his conduct, and became thenceforward one of the firm- 
 est friends of General Jackson.* 
 
 An attack made upon him in Knoxville by Governor Sevier 
 drew forth a challenge from Jackson, but the conduct of the 
 governor was so vacillating and cowardly, that the judge 
 
 * Kendall's Life of Jackson. 
 2 * 
 
18 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 finally attacked him in the midst of his friends, and would have 
 chastised him with a cane but for their interference. These 
 altercations with the governor, who was implicated in the land 
 frauds, the perpetrators of which Jackson was resolved to punish 
 if he continued on the bench, rendered his position there irksome 
 in the extreme, and he resigned in 1804, six years after his 
 appointment. 
 
 He had accepted the office of major-general of Tennessee, 
 when it was tendered to him by a vote of the field officers, but 
 the discharge of its duties interfered little with the enjoyment 
 of a peaceful retirement. The practice of his profession had 
 acquired for him a fortune suited to his limited wants, and he 
 devoted himself to the business of planting on his farm on the 
 banks of the Cumberland. 
 
 His passion for fine horses led him to turn his attention to 
 raising them from good stock, and few if any men were more suc- 
 cessful. The desire of exhibiting horses of his raising, and of 
 recommending them to purchasers, naturally led him to bring 
 them out upon the race-courses. Some difficulties had arisen 
 about a sum of money forfeited to him by a Mr. Erwin and 
 Charles Dickinson, his son-in-law. This was satisfactorily ad- 
 justed, but there were other persons who desired to bring about 
 a duel between Jackson and Dickinson, and they unfortunately 
 succeeded. Dickinson was accounted the best shot in his coun- 
 try : the prospect of a fight with Jackson ilattered his pride, 
 and he readily complied with the suggestions of those about him 
 to push matters to extremities. Much newspaper altercation 
 followed, and insults passed freely. At length Dickinson gave 
 into the hands of the printer a paper containing direct imputa- 
 tions of cowardice, and a notice that the writer was about to 
 leave the state. This drew from Jackson a challenge, which 
 was accepted, and the time fixed. Dickinson spent the inter- 
 vening period in perfecting his practice, boasted how often he 
 had hit the general chalked out on a tree, and offered to bet that 
 he would kill his antagonist at the meeting. All this was 
 
GENERAL ANDREW JACKSON. 19 
 
 made known to Jackson, who went upon the ground in the full 
 expectation of losing his life. At the word, Dickinson fired, 
 and the dust flew from Jackson's clothes ; Jackson then fired, 
 and Dickinson fell. He was carried into a neighbouring house, 
 where he soon expired. Jackson mounted his horse and tra- 
 velled twenty miles with his friend and surgeon: the blood 
 oozing through his clothes then first discovered to the latter 
 that the general was wounded. Two of his ribs were shattered 
 near their articulation with the breast-bone, and it was some time 
 before he could attend to business. None on the ground knew 
 that he was wounded except himself, yet the unfeeling conduct 
 of his antagonist before the meeting had so exasperated his 
 fearless spirit, that he said to a friend who was astonished at 
 his self-command, " Sir, I should have killed him if he had shot 
 me through the brain."* 
 
 Every effort to preserve honourable peace between Great 
 Britain and America having failed, Congress declared war, June 
 12th, 1812. Under the authority of an act directing the presi- 
 dent to accept the services of fifty thousand volunteers, Jackson 
 issued an address to the citizens of his division, which brought 
 twenty-five hundred of them around his standard. Their ser- 
 vices were tendered to the government and accepted, and Gene- 
 ral Jackson received the thanks of the president and the governor 
 of the state for his zeal in the public service. In November, 
 he received orders to place himself at the head of fifteen 
 hundred infantry and riflemen, and descend the Mississippi to 
 aid General Wilkinson in defending the lower country, then 
 supposed to be in danger. With the greatest firmness the 
 troops rendezvoused at Nashville, and advanced towards the 
 place of their destination. It was in the latter part of Decem- 
 ber ; the ground was covered with snow, and the weather was 
 excessively severe ; yet such was the eagerness for service, that 
 two thousand and seventy men presented themselves, nearly 
 
 * Kendall'sLife of Jackson. 
 
20 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OP 
 
 all armed and equipped at their own expense. All of them 
 were taken with him, lest their ardour should be damped by 
 sending any of them to their homes ; and Jackson, in a general 
 order published at Nashville, promised to be a father to the 
 whole of them. The army marched through the ice and snow 
 to Natchez, where General Jackson was instructed to remain 
 until he received further orders. Meanwhile, the prospect of 
 immediate war in that quarter had disappeared, and an order 
 was issued by the secretary of war, directing General Jackson 
 to dismiss the troops under his command from service, and to 
 take measures for delivering every article of the public property 
 in his possession to General Wilkinson. When this order 
 reached his camp, there were one hundred and fifty men on the 
 sick list, fifty-six of whom were unable to raise their heads. 
 Besides, none of the troops were possessed of sufficient funds to 
 pay their way home. Along with the general order, came a 
 letter from General Wilkinson, who feared an intention on the 
 part of Jackson to supersede him in the command. In his epis- 
 tle, Wilkinson informed General Jackson that he might still 
 perform a very acceptable service by encouraging the recruiting 
 service among the soldiers under his command. There have not 
 been wanting those, who, dispassionately examining the con- 
 nection between the orders of the secretary and the letters of 
 Wilkinson, have supposed the apprehensions of the latter, in 
 regard to precedence in rank, to furnish the key to the action 
 of the government. 
 
 To comply with the order of the secretary, the general would 
 have been obliged to leave his sick without medicines or tents, 
 and to discharge the remainder, in a strange country, where 
 they would probably be forced into the regular service, or fall 
 victims to vice and disease. He remembered the promise which 
 he had given to his troops in Nashville, and he determined to 
 obey the order only so far as it accorded with that promise. 
 A recruiting officer was found near his encampment : he threat- 
 ened him with a drumming out of the camp unless he departed 
 
GENERAL ANDREW JACKSON. 21 
 
 The general then issued an order to the troops, informing them 
 of his determination not to abandon them, but to lead them all 
 back to their country and their friends. His kind conduct ani- 
 mated the whole body, and almost all the sick became so much 
 better, that the detachment was in better health on its return to 
 Nashville than it had been when it set out. 
 
 Though he had felt hurt at the treatment which he had re- 
 ceived from the secretary, yet his indignation against Hull was 
 so great, that he wrote to Washington on his way home, offer- 
 ing to increase the force under his command, and to continue 
 his march to Maiden. 
 
 This offer was not accepted, but the secretary attempted to 
 explain away the imputation of injustice to the Tennessee volun- 
 teers, and the government sanctioned the conduct of the general, 
 and relieved him from the pecuniary responsibilities which he 
 had incurred for his troops. 
 
 The Creek Indians, who had been induced to join the great 
 Indian confederacy, organized by Tecumseh and his brother, 
 the Shawnee Prophet, commenced hostilities against the western 
 settlements in the early part of the year 1812. The outrages 
 they committed attracted the attention of the general govern- 
 ment, and the governor of Tennessee was directed to detail a 
 body of the militia of his state, to be in readiness for active ser- 
 vice. The first attack of real war was made by the Indians on 
 Fort Mims, situated in the Tensaw settlement, in the territory 
 of Mississippi. The fort contained one hundred and fifty men, 
 under Major Beasley, w 7 ith as many more members of families 
 who had sought safety there. Of the whole number, but 
 seventeen escaped from the indiscriminate slaughter to bring in- 
 telligence of the outrage to other parts of the country. The 
 people of Tennessee prepared to take up arms for the purpose 
 of avenging this outrage, and General Jackson advised that a 
 large force should be immediately marched into the heart of the 
 Creek country. Four thousand of the militia were called out 
 by the legislature. 
 
22 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 On the 7th of October, General Jackson took command of 
 the troops at Fayetteville. There he received an express from 
 Colonel Coffee, informing him that the Creek chiefs were march- 
 ing with the main body of their warriors towards the frontiers 
 of Tennessee. Apprehensive of failure on the part of the con- 
 tractors to supply provisions for the West Tennessee troops 
 under his command, he had requested Generals Cocke and 
 White, who commanded those from the eastern part of the state, 
 to send breadstuff's to his army by the Tennessee river. But 
 when he reached that stream, on the 12th of October, no sup- 
 plies from above had been received. He waited there for it a 
 week, employed in disciplining his army, which somewhat ex- 
 ceeded two thousand men. A friendly chief of the Creek tribe 
 had erected a fort for his own defence, which was threatened 
 with destruction by the advancing enemy, and he therefore 
 sent to Jackson for assistance. The general marched on the 
 19th with hardly a week's provisions on hand, for Thompson's 
 Creek, determined to proceed to the Ten Islands, on the Coosa 
 river, near which the enemy was concentrating. 
 
 Having, though almost destitute of food, reached the Coosa 
 river, General Coffee was ordered to cross it on the 2d of 
 November, and with five hundred men of his brigade, attack 
 and destroy the town of Tallushatchee. The hostile Creeks 
 there collected hailed with joy the approach of their opponents. 
 Mingling their savage yells and war-whoops with the noise of 
 drums, they charged the advanced companies with an almost 
 supernatural fury. But their onset was bravely received, and 
 they were compelled to retreat, fighting until they got within 
 their buildings, where an obstinate conflict ensued, the Indians 
 resisting when unable to stand, and neither asking nor receiving 
 quarter. One hundred and eighty-six were killed, and eighty- 
 four women and children taken prisoners. General Coffee lost 
 five killed and forty-one wounded. At the Ten Islands Gene- 
 ral Jackson established a post called Fort Strother, and sent an 
 express requiring the troops from East Tennessee to march 
 
 
GENERAL ANDREW JACKSON. 23 
 
 forthwith to his assistance. A runner from Talladega, a fort 
 of the friendly Indians, thirty miles distant, informed him that 
 the enemy had encamped before it in great numbers, and would 
 certainly destroy it unless he afforded immediate assistance. 
 He despatched a messenger to General White, ordering him to 
 reach Fort Strother in the course of the ensuing night, and pro- 
 tect it in his absence. Leaving there the sick and wounded, he 
 marched instantly for Talladega. He found the enemy posted 
 within a quarter of a mile of the fort, apparently in great force. 
 The action was as warm as it was short. In fifteen minutes 
 the Indians were seen fleeing in every direction, but the fight 
 was maintained with spirit and effect as well after the flight as 
 before. The pursuit terminated when the enemy gained the 
 mountains, three miles distant. Nearly eleven hundred In- 
 dians were engaged in this action : two hundred and ninety-nine 
 were left dead on the ground, and many were probably killed 
 in the flight and not found. Almost all of them were wounded, 
 and many afterwards died. 
 
 Meanwhile, Jackson had learned that in compliance with an 
 order from General Cocke, the East Tennessee troops under 
 
 I White had marched to Chataugan Creek, leaving the feeble gar- 
 
 I rison at Fort Strother unprotected. Added to this, the want 
 of provisions prevented him from following up his victory, com- 
 
 ' pelling him to retire while the enemy recovered from their con- 
 sternation, and reassembled their forces. When he reached the 
 fort, he found that no provisions had been forwarded since his 
 departure, and even his private stores, on which he and his 
 staff had hitherto subsisted, had been exhausted by the wounded 
 and sick. The only support afforded to the army was a scanty 
 supply of indifferent beef, taken from the enemy, or purchased 
 from the Cherokees. Suffering as much from hunger as his 
 men, General Jackson repaired to the bullock-pen, and there 
 
 , selected from the offal what he was pleased to call a very com- 
 fortable repast. Another example of patience and suffering was 
 afforded to his murmuring soldiers by the patriotic general dur- 
 
24 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH or 
 
 ing this campaign. A soldier perceived the general sitting be- 
 neath a tree, busily engaged in eating something, while the rear 
 of the army was coming up. Half starved himself, and believing 
 that the officers, and Jackson particularly, were well supplied, 
 he came boldly up to him, stated his condition, and demanded a 
 share of the general's feast. " I will willingly share with you 
 what I have," said the general, offering him some of the acorns 
 which he had found beneath the tree, and which he said was 
 the best and only fare he had. The astonished soldier retired 
 to report to his companions the fact that the general fed him- 
 self with acorns, and to urge them henceforth to bear the suf- 
 ferings which he nobly shared without complaint. Eut though 
 the privations which Jackson suffered failed to move him, he 
 felt much concern for his army, and continually exerted him- 
 self to remove their sufferings. 
 
 But discontent and a desire to return home gradually spread 
 through the camp, and revolt at length began to show itself 
 openly. The officers and soldiers of the militia determined to 
 leave the camp, and drew up early one morning to carry their 
 design into execution ; but they found the volunteers prepared 
 to prevent their progress, and force them to return to their old 
 position in the camp. The firmness of their general was too 
 much for them ; they abandoned their purpose and retired to 
 their quarters. The volunteers, however, were equally disaf- 
 fected with the militia ; they had opposed the mutineers only 
 to escape suspicion, and really wished them success. Supposing 
 that the general could find no means to prevent their desertion 
 in a body, they determined to march off on the next morning. 
 Words fail to express their confusion and astonishment, when 
 they found the very militia whom they had yesterday forced 
 into their quarters, prepared to execute a similar office for them 
 to-day. They carried the play through, and returned in good 
 order to their former position. 
 
 General Jackson at length agreed to march homeward, if the 
 expected supplies were not received within two days. They 
 
GENRRAL ANDREW JACKSON. 25 
 
 came not, and the army marched, leaving Fort Strother under 
 the protection of a small band of patriots, whom Captain Gor- 
 don had induced to remain. Twelve miles from the fort, the 
 armv met a drove of one hundred and fifty beeves. After hav- 
 ing satisfied their appetites, the general ordered the troops to 
 return; but they had commenced a homeward march, and were 
 unwilling to encounter again the perils of war. Almost the 
 whole brigade had put itself in an attitude for moving off, and 
 the campaign would certainly have been broken off* but for the 
 firmness of the general. Mounting his horse, he threw himself 
 in front of the column, armed with a musket. He was not able 
 to use his left arm, but he rested the musket on the neck of 
 his horse, and threatened to shoot the first man who should 
 attempt to advance. The disaffected troops maintained a sullen 
 ! silence, until two faithful companies had formed in the rear of 
 the general and in front of them, prepared to imitate his exam- 
 ple in firing. They then turned quietly round, and agreed to 
 return to their posts. But no good results could be brought 
 about by disaffected troops, and the general at length resolved 
 to allow them to return home. 
 
 He himself remained with a few faithful soldiers until 
 January 1814, when he was reinforced by a small detachment 
 of raw militia, with which he determined to march to Emuck- 
 faw, on the Tallapoosa river. At this place there was sup- 
 posed to be congregated a large force of hostile Indians, 
 ready to destroy the Georgia troops under General Floyd. 
 At Talladega two hundred friendly Indians were added to 
 his force, but they were dispirited at the apparent weakness 
 of his army, and added little to its real strength. Intelligence 
 from the commanding officer at Fort Armstrong, advising him 
 that the enemy was preparing to attack that weak and almost 
 defenceless position, determined him to proceed. His white 
 force, which consisted of less than nine hundred new recruits, 
 were badly disciplined, but full of ardour and confidence in their 
 general. On the night of the 21st, a large Indian encampment 
 3 
 
20 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ' OF 
 
 •was discovered, in which the savages were whooping and danc- 
 ing, apparently aware of his approach. The general put his 
 army in readiness for an attack. At six o'clock in the follow- 
 ing morning, the enemy commenced the battle by furiously as- 
 saulting the left wing. They were gallantly repulsed, but re- 
 newed the fight with great fury. They were unable, however, 
 to withstand the bayonet, and returned to their camp. 
 
 Though his army had been victorious, General Jackson 
 was but too well aware of the disparity between his force 
 and that of the enemy. His troops were not well supplied 
 with provisions, and the enemy, when reinforced from the 
 towns below, would be able to prevent his return. Under these 
 circumstances he determined to retreat to Fort Strother. On 
 crossing a creek called Enotochopco, on his way to the 
 Emuckfaw, he had observed that there was, near the ford, a 
 dangerous defile, overgrown with thick shrubbery, and affording 
 every convenience for concealment and safety from pursuit. As 
 the enemy hung round his army on the march without attack- 
 ing, General Jackson concluded that they intended to form an 
 , ambuscade in this defile, and he therefore sent his pioneers to 
 look for another crossing-place below. One was found, and the 
 army was led towards it, formed in order of battle. Part of 
 the army had crossed the river before the Indians were aware 
 of the change in the place of crossing. They made a furious 
 attack on the rear, which commenced a shameful flight to Ihe 
 creek. The artillery company under Lieutenant Armstrong 
 dragged their piece of ordnance from the creek to an eminence 
 where they could use it to advantage. This attracted the 
 attention of the foe, who entered into an obstinate contest 
 for its possession. Carroll and Armstrong kept the enemy 
 at bay until assistance arrived. Shot down at the side of his 
 gun, Armstrong exhorted his men to continue the defence.. 
 " Some of you must fall," said he, " but don't lose the gun." 
 The cartridges were driven home with the butt end of a musket, 
 and prepared for the match with the ramrod : Captain Gordon 
 
GENERAL ANDREW JACKSON. 27 
 
 made an active charge on the left flank of the enemy with 
 his company of spies, and General Jackson, led his men again 
 into the battle, and restored the fate of the day. The 
 savages fled, leaving behind everything likely to retard their 
 speed. 
 
 When the troops had reached Fort Strother, their term of 
 service, which numbered only sixty days, had almost expired, 
 and General Jackson therefore honourably discharged them. 
 The volunteers who had remained with him when their fellows 
 returned home, were also marched into Tennessee, and there 
 dismissed with testimonials of their honour, fidelity and patriot- 
 ism. General Jackson was soon after joined by a fresh army 
 of nearly three thousand men, with which he determined to ad- 
 vance into the enemy's country. Having learned that the 
 main body of the Indians were in the neighbourhood of Emuck- 
 faw, he marched thither, and found them in a bend of the 
 Tallapoosa, called, from its shape, Tohopeka, or the Horse 
 Shoe. A well- constructed breastwork had been erected across 
 the neck which connected their retreat with the main land, 
 and the savages considered themselves perfectly secure. 
 
 Coffee crossed the river and surrounded the bend, to prevent 
 the retreat of the enemy. Jackson then commenced a cannon- 
 ade in front, and Coffee sent a detachment over to attack the 
 enemy in the rear of the fortification. The works were then 
 stormed, and a furious battle ensued within the enclosure. 
 Over eight hundred of the enemy's bravest warriors perished 
 in the place of their supposed greatest security, and the small 
 remnant of their nation soon after sought for peace. The 
 victorious Tennesseeans were now dismissed ; but their com- 
 mander had attracted the attention of the whole country by the 
 firmness, intrepidity, and daring with which he faced the pains 
 of starvation and the rifles of the enemy until the war was 
 gloriously ended, and he was called into a wider sphere of action. 
 He received the appointment of major-general in the army of 
 
28 DIOGKArillCAL SKETCH of 
 
 the United States, and was made a commissioner to negotiate a 
 treaty of peace and alliance with the Creeks. 
 
 While performing this duty, he noticed the protection and 
 encouragement which the hostile Indians had hitherto and still 
 received from the governor of the Spanish fortress of Pensacola. 
 He despatched Captain Gordon as a commissioner to that gover- 
 nor with the causes of complaint, requiring him to state the 
 course he intended to pursue, whether he would preserve the 
 peace between the two nations, or cloak the realities of war be- 
 neath the appearance of friendship. The governor admitted 
 that he had supplied the Indians with arms, and Captain Gordon 
 reported that he had seen under the eye of the governor, from 
 " One hundred and fifty to two hundred British officers and sol- 
 diers, and a park of artillery, with five hundred Indians in the 
 British military dress, armed with new muskets and under the 
 drill of British officers. Added to this, a British flag was seen 
 flying from a Spanish fort." Jackson determined to supply its 
 place with the American Eagle. 
 
 Reinforced by two thousand Tennessee volunteers under 
 Coffee, General Jackson determined to take the responsibility, 
 and end the governor's violation of all principles of right and 
 neutrality. He advanced upon the town, and sent a flag to 
 the fort, but it was fired on from beneath the Spanish flag. 
 The capture of the city by force w r as speedily effected. The 
 British retreated, the hostile Creeks were driven out and pur- 
 sued, and the Spanish forts were surrendered to him, to be held 
 until Spain could maintain neutrality. The general then marched 
 for New Orleans, where an attack was expected to be made 
 by the British. 
 
 lie arrived in that city on the 1st of December, and 
 established there his head-quarters. The story of the invasion 
 of Louisiana has been too often told to need recounting here. 
 He summoned every means of defence, fortified every vulnera- 
 ble point, prevented many of the evil effects which it had been 
 anticipated would be produced by British gold upon a motley 
 
GENERAL ANDREW JACKSON. 29 
 
 French and Spanish population, by declaring martial law, and 
 quieted the apprehensions of many of the inhabitants by the 
 confidence with which he assured them that the British would 
 never reach the city. 
 
 The leading traits in Jackson's character, promptitude in de- 
 cision, and activity in execution, had at New Orleans a wide 
 field for their display. The enemy landed undiscovered at 
 noon on the 23d of December : in the night after that day, 
 he was attacked by the fearless general. With a militia 
 force, numbering but half that of the enemy, Jackson broke 
 into the camp, and drove before him the bravest veterans of 
 England, the conquerors of Europe. The British had ex- 
 pected little opposition, were certain of success, and unable 
 to conceive, notwithstanding what they had heard of the cha- 
 racter of their opponent, that he would hazard his reputation 
 by attacking, on its chosen ground, an army famed throughout 
 the world for the victories it had gained. The attack of the 
 23d was of the utmost importance : new life was infused into 
 the American arm)', while the ardour of the British became 
 changed to a depressing state of doubt and uncertainty. Time 
 was now consumed in preparations before considered unnecessary ; 
 and every hour that the British delayed the attack, was im- 
 proved by the Americans in increasing the strength of their works, 
 that they might make a successful resistance when itshouldbemade. 
 Several bales of cotton belonging to a Frenchman, had been 
 applied with others to strengthening an embrasure on the line. 
 Apprehensive that it would receive injury, he proceeded in per- 
 son to General Jackson to reclaim it, and demand its delivery. 
 When he had stated his business, the general desired to know 
 whether he was employed in any military service. He replied 
 that he was not. Then the general directed a musket to be put 
 in his hand, and ordered him on the line, remarking that none 
 had a better right to fight than those who had property to de- 
 fend. 
 
 The morning of the 8th of January was chosen for a final 
 3* 
 
30 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 assault upon the American works. The British marched to 
 the attack, confident that a warm fire from a body of vete- 
 ran troops would instantly put to flight a whole host of militia. 
 An unremitting fire from cannons, rifles, and muskets, answered 
 their discharge of bombs, balls, and Congreve rockets. The 
 commander-in-chief, and two of his aids, fell victims to their 
 presumption, and the horror-stricken soldiers refused again to 
 encounter the destruction which had fallen upon their comrades. 
 The efforts of their general to stop them were unavailing ; they 
 acted the very part which they had assigned to the militia, 
 abandoned the contest and the field in disorder. On the 18th 
 of January they re-embarked with the greatest silence and cau- 
 tion, the British commander leaving to the hospitality of General 
 Jackson eighty of his soldiers, who were too severely wounded 
 to be removed. He suspended for the present, he said, all fur- 
 ther operations against New Orleans, and requested his huma- 
 nity towards the wounded he had left, and whom necessity had 
 compelled him to abandon. 
 
 To the glory of having freed the country from a most for- 
 midable foe, General Jackson was now to add that of laying 
 aside his official dignity, to answer at the bar as a private citi- 
 zen a charge of having infracted the laws of his country. 
 
 During the continuance of martial law, General Jackson had 
 had some difficulties with Judge Hall, which ended in an order 
 to the judge to leave the encampment. When peace was re- 
 stored, the judge summoned Jackson to show cause why an at- 
 tachment for contempt should not issue against him. Jackson 
 restrained the fury of the people, appeared at the bar of the 
 court, suffered the judge to become the prosecutor and arbiter 
 of his own grievances, and paid the fine of one thousand dollars 
 which was conceived to be due to the offended majesty of the 
 laws. Before he died, however, the general had the satisfaction 
 to receive by a vote of Congress a reversal of the judgment of 
 Hall, and the return of the fine with interest. 
 
 For some time after the victory of New Orleans, bands of Se- 
 
GENERAL ANDREW JACKSON. 31 
 
 minoles, Creeks, and runaway negroes found an asylum in the 
 neutral Spanish territory of Pensacola, whence they made hos- 
 tile incursions upon the frontier settlements. Towards the close 
 of the year 1819, the general government ordered Jackson to 
 go there with a sufficient force to repress these incursions, and 
 gave him authority to pursue the enemy across the Spanish line, 
 if necessary. He routed the Indians in several engagements, 
 and ascertained that these ravages had been made at the insti- 
 gation of British emissaries, two of whom, Arbuthnot and Am- 
 brister, were captured at the destruction of an Indian village. 
 They were tried by a court-martial and condemned to death, 
 and General Jackson immediately carried the sentence into exe- 
 cution. The campaign was speedily terminated ; and General 
 Jackson was about marching to Nashville, when he learned that 
 the governor of Pensacola had afforded protection to the enemy. 
 He marched against and occupied this post with twelve hundred 
 United States soldiers ; but being attacked by some of the public 
 journals for what they considered a violation of international 
 law, he repaired to Washington, to explain more fully his trans- 
 actions. He was received in that city, and in Baltimore, Phila- 
 delphia, and New York, with the highest honours. 
 
 From July to October 1821, he was engaged, as governor of 
 the Floridas, in organizing a territorial government for those 
 provinces, which had been ceded to the United States. In 1S24 
 he was a candidate for the presidency ; but four competitors 
 having been nominated, no one received the number of votes 
 necessary to an election. The choice of president devolving on 
 the House of Representatives, Mr. Adams was elected. In 
 1828, however, General Jackson was elected to the presidency, 
 and held that office during eight years — one of the most stormy 
 periods of our political history. He retired to the Hermitage, 
 on the inauguration of his successor, in 1S37, and enjoyed there 
 the sweets of private life until his death, June Sth, 1845, in the 
 seventy-ninth year of his age. Death found him in the full pos- 
 
32 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF JACKSON. 
 
 session of his faculties, and perfectly prepared for his long-ex- 
 pected advent. 
 
 It can hardly be expected that the present generation will 
 do justice to the character of Jackson. So great was his firm- 
 ness and decision of character, so little could the opinions of men 
 or the consequences to himself move him from what he thought 
 the path of duty, and so ardent was his attachment to his coun- 
 try and his friends, that his opponents have ever been most 
 bitter enemies, and his friends almost his worshippers. But the 
 closing scenes in the drama of his life give a fair illustration of 
 his character. On leaving the service of his country in the 
 highest station in which she places her most favoured sons, he 
 retires far from the pomp and show of the world, and lives in 
 true republican simplicity. There he devotes himself still to the 
 object ever nearest his heart — his country's good — constantly 
 watching over her interests, and often advising his fellow-citizens 
 on the subjects he esteemed of the most importance. His letters 
 evince the warmest patriotism and the happiest Christian resig- 
 nation. And when the last trying scene is at hand, and even 
 when he feels the chill hand of death upon him, he forgets not 
 his republicanism, his characteristic simplicity. He whom a 
 nation delighted to honour, over whose grave they would gladly 
 raise a storied monument, must be buried without show or 
 parade in an humble tomb beside the remains of his " beloved 
 wife." 
 
EULOGY 
 
 DELIVERED AT WASHINGTON CITY, JUNE 27, 1845, 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE BANCROFT, 
 
 SECRETARY OF THE NAVY OF THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 The men of the American Revolution are no more ! That age 
 of creative power has passed away. The last surviving signer of 
 the Declaration of Independence has long since left the earth. 
 Washington lies near his own Potomac, surrounded by his family 
 and his servants. Adams, the Colossus of Independence, reposes in 
 the modest grave-yard of his native region. Jefferson sleeps on the 
 heights of his own Monticello, whence his eye overlooked his be- 
 loved Virginia. Madison, the last survivor of the men who made 
 our constitution, lives only in our hearts. But who shall say that 
 the heroes, in whom the image of God shone most brightly, do not 
 live for ever? They were filled with the vast conceptions which 
 called America into being ■ they lived for those conceptions, and 
 their deeds praise them. 
 
 We are met to commemorate the virtues of one who shed his 
 blood for our independence, took part in winning the territory and 
 forming the early institutions of the West, and was imbued with 
 all the great ideas which constitute the moral force of our country. 
 On the spot where he gave his solemn fealty to the people — here, 
 where he pledged himself before the world, to freedom, to the 
 constitution, and to the laws — we meet to pay our tribute to the 
 memory of the last great name, which gathers round itself all the 
 associations that form the glory of America. 
 
 South Carolina gave a birthplace to Andrew Jackson. On its 
 remote frontier, far up on the forest-clad banks of the Catawba, in 
 a region where the settlers were just beginning to cluster, his eye 
 first, saw the light. There his infancy sported in the ancient 
 forests, and his mind was nursed to freedom by their influence. 
 He was the youngest son of an Irish emigrant of Scottish origin, 
 who, two years after the great war of Frederick of Prussia, fled to 
 America for relief from indigence and oppression. His birth was 
 
 (33) 
 
34> MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 in 1767, at a time when the people of our land were but a body 
 of dependent colonists, scarcely more than two millions in number, 
 scattered along an immense coast, with no army, or navy, or union; 
 and exposed to the attempts of England to control America by the 
 aid of military force. His boyhood grew up in the midst of the 
 contest with Great Britain. The first great political truth that 
 reached his heart was, that all men are free and equal ; the first 
 great fact that beamed on his understanding was, his country's 
 independence. 
 
 The strife, as it increased, came near the shades of his own up- 
 land residence. As a boy of thirteen, he witnessed the scenes of 
 horror that accompany civil war ; and when but a year older, with 
 an elder brother, he shouldered his musket, and went forth to strike 
 a blow for his country. 
 
 Joyous era for America and for humanity ! But for him, the 
 orphan boy, the events were full of agony and grief. His father 
 was no more. His oldest brother fell a victim to the war of the 
 Revolution ; another (his companion in arms) died of wounds re- 
 ceived in their joint captivity: his mother went down to the grave 
 a victim to grief and efforts to rescue her sons ; and when peace 
 came, he was alone in the world, with no kindred to cherish him, 
 and little inheritance but his own untried powers. 
 
 The nation which emancipated itself from_British rule organizes 
 itself; the confederation gives way to the constitution; the per- 
 fecting of that constitution — that grand event of the thousand 
 years of modern history — is accomplished ! America exists as a 
 people, gains unity as a government, and takes its place as a nation 
 among the powers of the earth. 
 
 The next great office to be performed by America is the taking 
 possession of the wilderness. The magnificent western valley cried 
 out to the civilization of popular power, that it must be occupied 
 by cultivated man. 
 
 Behold, then, our orphan hero, sternly earnest, consecrated to 
 humanity from childhood by sorrow, having neither father, nor 
 mother, nor sister, nor surviving brother ; so young, and yet so 
 solitary, and therefore bound the more closely to collective man — 
 behold him elect for his lot, to go forth and assist in laying the 
 foundations of society in the great valley of the Mississippi. 
 
 At the very time when Washington was pledging his own and 
 future generations to the support of the popular institutions which 
 were to be the light of the human race — at the time when the 
 institutions of the Old World were rocking to their centre, and the 
 mighty fabric that had come down from the middle ages was falling 
 in — the adventurous Jackson, in the radiant glory and boundless 
 hope and confident intrepidity of twenty-one, plunged into the 
 wilderness, crossed the great mountain-barrier that divides the 
 
Bancroft's eulogy. 35 
 
 western waters from the Atlantic, followed the paths of the early 
 hunters and fugitives, and, not content with the nearer neighbour- 
 hood to his parent state, went still further and further to the west, 
 4ill he found his home in the most beautiful region on the Cumber- 
 land. There, from the first, he was recognised as the great pio- 
 neer ; under his courage, the coming emigrants were sure to find a 
 shield. 
 
 The lovers of adventure began to pour themselves into the terri- 
 tory, whose delicious climate and fertile soil invited the presence 
 of social man. The hunter, with his rifle and his axe, attended by 
 his wife and children ; the herdsman, driving the few cattle that 
 were to multiply as they browsed ; the cultivator of the soil — all 
 came to the inviting region. Wherever the bending mountains 
 opened a pass ; wherever the buffaloes and the beasts of the forest 
 had made a trace, these sons of nature, children of humanity, in 
 the highest sentiment of personal freedom, came to occupy the 
 beautiful wilderness whose prairies blossomed everywhere pro- 
 fusely with wild flowers ; whose woods in spring put to shame, by 
 their magnificence, the cultivated gardens of man. 
 
 And now that these unlettered fugitives, educated only by the 
 spirit of freedom, destitute of dead letter erudition, but sharing the 
 living ideas of the age, had made their homes in the west — what would 
 follow ? Would they degrade themselves to ignorance and infide- 
 lity ? Would they make the solitudes of the desert excuses for 
 licentiousness? Would the doctrines of freedom lead them to live 
 in unorganized society, destitute of laws and fixed institutions? 
 
 At a time when European society was becoming broken in 
 pieces, scattered, disunited, and resolved into its elements, a scene 
 ensued in Tennessee, than which nothing more beautifully grand is 
 recorded in the annals of the race. 
 
 These adventurers in the wilderness longed to come together in 
 organized society. The overshadowing genius of their time in- 
 spired them with good designs, and filled them with the counsels 
 of wisdom. Dwellers in the forest, freest of the free, bound in the 
 spirit, they came up by their representatives, on foot, on horseback, 
 through the forest, along the streams, by the buffalo traces, by the 
 Indian paths, by the blazed forest avenues, to meet in convention 
 among the mountains at Knoxville, and frame for themselves a con- 
 stitution. Andrew Jackson was there, the greatest man of them 
 all — modest, bold, determined, demanding nothing for himself, and 
 shrinking from nothing that his heart approved. 
 
 The convention came together on the 11th day of January, 179G, 
 and finished its work on the 6th day of February. How had the 
 wisdom of the Old World vainly tasked itself to frame constitutions, 
 that could, at least, be the subject of experiment ! the men of Ten- 
 nessee, in less than twenty-five days, perfected a fabric, which, in 
 
36 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 its essential forms, was to last for ever. They came together full 
 of faith and reverence, of love to humanity, of confidence in truth. 
 In the simplicity of wisdom, they framed their constitution, acting 
 under higher influences than they were conscious of — 
 
 They wrought in sad sincerity, 
 Themselves from God they could not free ; 
 They builded better than they knew ; 
 The conscious stones to beauty grew. 
 
 In the instrument which they framed, they embodied their faith 
 in God, in the immortal nature of man. They gave the right of 
 suffrage to every freeman ; they vindicated the sanctity of reason, 
 by giving freedom of speech and of the press ; they reverenced the 
 voice of God, as it speaks in the soul of man, by asserting the in- 
 defeasible right of man to worship the Infinite according to his 
 conscience ; they established the freedom and equality of elections ; 
 and they demanded from every future legislator a solemn oath 
 " never to consent to any act or thing whatever, that shall have 
 even a tendency to lessen the rights of the people.'' 
 
 These majestic lawgivers, wiser than the Solons, and Lycur- 
 guses, and Numas of the Old World — these prophetic founders of a 
 state, who embodied in their constitution the sublimest truths of 
 humanity, acted without reference to human praises. 
 
 They kept no special record of their doings ; they took no pains 
 to vaunt their deeds ; and when their work was done, knew not 
 that they had finished one of the sublimest acts ever performed 
 among men. They left no record, as to whose agency was con- 
 spicuous, whose eloquence swayed, whose generous will predomi- 
 nated ; nor should we know, but for tradition, confirmed by what 
 followed among themselves. 
 
 The men of Tennessee were now a people, and they were to send 
 forth a man to stand for them in the Congress of the United States — 
 that avenue to glory — that home of eloquence — the citadel of popu- 
 lar power ; and, with one consent, they united in selecting the 
 foremost man among; their lawgivers — Andrew Jackson. 
 
 DO 
 
 The love of the people of Tennessee followed him to the 
 American Congress, and he had served but a single term, when 
 the state of Tennessee made him one of its representatives in the 
 American Senate, where he sat under the auspices of Jefferson. 
 
 Thus, when he was scarcely more than thirty, he had guided 
 the settlement of the wilderness; swayed the deliberation of a 
 people in establishing its fundamental laws; acted as the represen- 
 tative of that people, and again as the representative of his organ- 
 ized state, disciplined to a knowledge of the power of the people, 
 and the power of the states ; the associate of republican statesmen, 
 the friend and companion of Jefferson. 
 
 The men who framed the constitution of the United States, many 
 
Bancroft's eulogy. 37 
 
 of them, did not know of the innate life and self-preserving energy 
 of their work. They feared that freedom could not endure, and 
 they planned a strong government for its protection. 
 
 During his short career in Congress, Jackson showed his quiet, 
 deeply seated, innate, intuitive faith in human freedom, and in the 
 institutions of freedom. He was ever, by his votes and opinions, 
 found among those who had confidence in humanity : and in the 
 great division of minds, this child of the woodlands, this representa- 
 tive of forest life in the west, was found modestly and firmly on the 
 side of freedom. It did not occur to him to doubt the right of man 
 to the free developement of his powers ; it did not occur to him to 
 seek to give durability to popular institutions, by giving to govern- 
 ment a strength independent of popular will. 
 
 From the first, he was attached to the fundamental doctrines of 
 popular power, and of the policy that favours it ; and though his 
 reverence for Washington surpassed his reverence for any human 
 being, he voted against the address from the House of Representa- 
 tives to Washington on his retirement, because its language appeared 
 to sanction the financial policy which he believed hostile to repub- 
 lican freedom. 
 
 During his period of service in the Senate, Jackson was elected 
 major-general by the brigadiers and field officers of the militia of 
 Tennessee. Resigning his place in the Senate, he was made judge 
 of the supreme court in law and equity ; such was the confidence 
 in his integrity of purpose, his clearness of judgment, and his vigour 
 of will to deal justly among the turbulent who crowded into the 
 new settlements of Tennessee. 
 
 Thus, in the short period of nine years, Andrew Jackson was 
 signalized by as many evidences of public esteem as could fall to 
 the lot of man. The pioneer of the wilderness, the defender of its 
 stations, he was their lawgiver, the sole representative of a new 
 people in Congress, the representative of the state in the Senate, 
 the highest in military command, the highest in judicial office. 
 He seemed to be recognised as their first love of liberty, the first in 
 the science of legislation, in judgment, and integrity. 
 
 Fond of private life, he would have resigned the judicial office ; 
 but the whole country demanded his service. "Nature," they 
 cried, "never designed that your powers of thought and indepen- 
 dence of mind should be lost in retirement." But after a few 
 years, relieving himself from the cares of the bench, he gave hijn- 
 self to the activity and the independent life of a husbandman. He 
 carried into retirement the fame of natural intelligence, and was 
 cherished as " a prompt, frank, and ardent soul." His vigour of 
 character constituted him first among all with whom he associated. 
 A private man as he was, His name was familiarly spoken round 
 every hearth-stone^/in Tennessee. Men loved to discuss his quali- 
 4 
 
33 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 ties. All discerned his power; and when the vehemence and 
 impetuosity of his nature were observed upon, there were not 
 wanting those who saw, beneath the blazing tires of his genius, the 
 solidity of his judgment. 
 
 His hospitable roof sheltered the emigrant and the pioneer ; and, 
 as they made their way to their new homes, they filled the moun- 
 tain-sides and the valleys with his praise. 
 
 Connecting himself, for a season, with a man of business, Jackson 
 soon discerned the misconduct of his associate. Jt marked his cha- 
 racter, that he insisted, himself, on paying every obligation that 
 had been contracted ; and rather than endure the vassalage of debt, 
 he instantly parted with the rich domain which his early enter- 
 prise had acquired — with his own mansion — with his fields which 
 he himself had first tamed to the ploughshare — with the forest 
 whose trees were as familiar to him as his friends — and chose rather 
 to dwell, for a time, in a rude log-cabin, in the pride of indepen- 
 dence and integrity. 
 
 On all great occasions, Jackson's influence- was deferred to. 
 When Jefferson had acquired for the country the whole of Louisi- 
 ana, and there seemed some hesitancy, on the part of Spain, to 
 acknowledge our possession, the services of Jackson were solicited 
 by the national administration, and were not called into full exer- 
 cise, only from the peaceful termination of the incidents that occa- 
 sioned the summons. 
 
 In the long series of aggressions on the freedom of the seas, and 
 the rights of the American flag, Jackson was- on the side of his 
 country, and the new maritime code of republicanism. In his 
 inland home, where the roar of the breakers was never heard, and 
 the mariner was never seen, he resented the continued aggression 
 on our commerce and on our sailors. 
 
 When the continuance of wrong compelled the nation to resort 
 to arms, Jackson, led by the instinctive knowledge of his own 
 o-reatness, yet with a modesty that would have honoured the most 
 sensitive delicacy of nature, confessed his willingness to he em- 
 ployed on the Canada frontier ; and it is a fact, that he aspired to 
 the command to which Winchester was appointed. We may ask, 
 what would have been the result, if the command of the north- 
 western army had, at the opening of the war, been intrusted to a 
 man who, in action, was ever so fortunate, that his vehement will 
 seemed to have made destiny capitulate to his designs? 
 
 The path of duty led him in another direction. On the declara- 
 tion of war, twenty-five hundred volunteers had risen at his word 
 to follow his standard; but by countermanding orders from the seat 
 of government, the movement was without effect. 
 
 A new and great danger hung over the West. The Indian 
 tribes were to make one last effort to restore it\ to its solitude, and 
 
Bancroft's eulogy. 39 
 
 recover it for savage life. The brave, relentless Shawnees — who, 
 from time immemorial, had strolled from the waters of the Ohio to 
 the rivers of Alabama — were animated by Tecumseh and his brother 
 the Prophet, who spoke to them as with the voice of the Great 
 Spirit, and aroused the Creek nation to desperate massacres. Who 
 has not heard of their terrible deeds, when their ruthless cruelty 
 spared neither sex nor age ? when the infant and its mother, the 
 planter and his family, who had fled for refuge to the fortress, the 
 garrison that capitulated — all were slain, and not a vestige of de- 
 fence was left in the country 1 The cry of the West demanded 
 Jackson for its defender ; and though his arm was then fractured 
 by a ball, and hung in a sling, he placed himself at the head of the 
 volunteers of Tennessee, and resolved to terminate for ever the here- 
 ditary struggle. 
 
 Who can tell the horrors of that campaign ? Who can paint 
 rightly the obstacle^ which Jackson overcame — mountains, the 
 scarcity of untenanted forests; winter, the failure of supplies from 
 the settlements, the insubordination of troops, mutiny, menaces of 
 desertion 1 Who can measure the wonderful power over men, by 
 which his personal prowess and attractive energy drew them in 
 midwinter from their homes, across mountains and morasses, and 
 through trackless deserts 1 Who can describe the personal heroism 
 of Jackson, never sparing himself, beyond any of his men encoun- 
 tering toil and fatigue, snaring every labour of the camp and of 
 4 he march, foremost in every danger; giving up his horse to the 
 invalid soldier, while he himself waded through the swamps on 
 foot ? None equalled him in power of endurance ; and the private 
 soldiers, as they found him passing them on the march, exclaimed, 
 " He is as tough as hickory." " Yes," they cried to one another, 
 " there goes Old Hickory !" 
 
 Who cannot narrate the terrible events of the double battles of 
 Emuckfaw, or the glorious victory of Tohopeka, where the anger 
 of the general against the faltering was more appalling than the 
 war-whoop and rifle of the savage 1 Who can rightly conceive 
 the field of Etiotochopoo, where the general, as he attempted to 
 draw the sword to cut down a flying colonel who was leading a 
 regiment from the field, broke again the arm which was but newly 
 knit together ; and quietly replacing it in the sling, with his com- 
 manding voice arrested the flight of the troops, and himself led 
 them back to victory! 
 
 In six short months of vehement action, the most terrible Indian 
 war in our annals was brought to a close ; the prophets were 
 silenced; the consecrated region of the Creek nation reduced. 
 Through scenes of blood, the avenging hero sought only the path 
 to peace. Thus Alabama, a part of Mississippi, a part of his own 
 
40 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 Tennessee, and the highwa}' to the Floridas, were his gifts to the 
 Union. These were his trophies. 
 
 Genius as extraordinary as military events can call forth, was 
 summoned into action in this rapid, efficient, and most fortunately 
 conducted war. 
 
 Time would fail were I to track our hero down the watercourses 
 of Alabama to the neighbourhood of Pensacola. How he longed 
 to plant the eagle of his country on its battlements! 
 
 Time would fail, and words be wanting, were I to dwell on the 
 magical influence of his appearance in New Orleans. His presence 
 dissipated gloom and dispelled alarm ; at once he changed the 
 aspect of despair into a confidence of security and a hope of ac- 
 quiring glory. Every man knows the tale of the heroic, sudden, 
 and yet deliberate daring which led him, on the night of the 23d 
 of December, to precipitate his little army on his foes, in the thick 
 darkness, before they grew familiar with their encampment, scat- 
 tering dismay through veteran regiments of England, and defeating 
 them, and arresting their progress by a far inferior force. 
 
 Who shall recount the counsels of prudence, the kindling words 
 of eloquence that gushed from his lips to cheer his soldiers — his 
 skirmishes and battles, till that eventful morning when the day at 
 Bunker's Hill had its fulfilment in the glorious battle of New Or- 
 leans, and American independence stood before the world in the 
 majesty of victorious power. 
 
 These were great deeds for the nation ; for himself he did a greater. 
 Had not Jackson been renowned for the vehement impetuosity of 
 his passions, for his defiance of others' authority, and the unbend- 
 ing vigour of his self-will ? Behold the saviour of Louisiana, all 
 garlanded with victory, viewing around him the city he had pre- 
 served, the maidens and children whom his heroism had protected, 
 stand in the presence of a petty judge, who gratifies his wounded 
 vanity by an abuse of his judicial power. Every breast in the 
 crowded audience heaves with indignation. He, the passionate, 
 the impetuous — he whose power was to be humbled, whose honour 
 questioned, whose laurels tarnished, alone stood, sublimely serene ; 
 and when the craven judge trembled and faltered, and dared not 
 proceed, himself, the arraigned one, bade him take courage, and 
 stood by the law even in the moment when the law was made the 
 instrument of insult and wrong on himself — at the moment of his 
 most perfect claim to the highest civic honours. 
 
 His country, when it grew to hold many more millions, the 
 generation that then was coming in, has risen up to do homage to 
 the noble heroism of that hour. Woman, whose feeling is always 
 right, did honour from the first to the purity of his heroism. The 
 people of Louisiana, to the latest hour, will cherish his name as 
 their greatest benefactor. 
 
BANCROFT^ EULOGY. 41 
 
 The culture of Jackson's mind had been much promoted by his 
 services and associations in the war. His discipline of himself, as 
 the chief in command ; his intimate relations with men like Liv- 
 ingston; the wonderful deeds in which he bore a part ; all matured 
 his judgment and mellowed his character. 
 
 Peace came with its delights ; once more the country rushed 
 forward in the developement of its powers ; once more the arts of 
 industry healed the wounds that war had inflicted 3 and, from com- 
 merce and agriculture and manufactures, wealth gushed abundantly 
 under the free activity of unrestrained enterprise. 
 
 And Jackson returned to his own fields and his own pursuits, to 
 cherish his plantation, to care for his servants, to look after his 
 stud, to enjoy the affection of the most kind and devoted wife, 
 whom he respected with the gentlest deference, and loved with an 
 almost miraculous tenderness. 
 
 And there he stood, like one of the mightiest forest trees of his 
 own West, vigorous and colossal, sending its summit to the skies, 
 and growing on its native soil in wild and inimitable magnificence, 
 careless of beholders. From all parts of the country he received 
 appeals to his political ambition, and the severe modesty of his 
 well-balanced mind turned them all aside. He was happy in his 
 farm, happy in seclusion, happy in his family, happy within him- 
 self. 
 
 But the passions of the southern Indians were not allayed by the 
 peace with Great Britain : and foreign emissaries were still among 
 them, to inflame and direct their malignity. Jackson was called 
 forth by his country to restrain the cruelty of the treacherous and 
 unsparing Seminoles. It was in the train of the events of this war 
 that he placed the American eagle on St. Marks, and above the 
 ancient towers of St. Augustine. His deeds in that war, of them- 
 selves, form a monument to human power, to the celerity of his 
 genius, to the creative fertility of his resources, his intuitive saga- 
 city. As Spain, in his judgment, had committed aggression, he 
 would have emancipated her islands ; of the Havana, he caused the 
 reconnoissance to be made ; and, with an army of five thousand 
 men, he stood ready to guaranty her redemption from colonial 
 thraldom. 
 
 But when peace was restored, and his office was accomplished, 
 his physical strength sunk under the pestilential influence of the 
 climate, and, fast yielding to disease, he was borne in a litter across 
 the swamps of Florida, towards his home. It was Jackson's cha- 
 racter that he never solicited aid from any one : but he never for- 
 got those who rendered him service in the hour of need. At a 
 time when all around him believed him near his end, his wife 
 hastened to his side, and, by her tenderness and nursing care, her 
 4* 
 
42 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 patient assiduity, and the soothing influence of devoted love, with- 
 held him from the grave. 
 
 He would have remained quietly at his home in repose, but that 
 he was privately informed his good name was to be attainted by 
 some intended congressional proceedings. He came, therefore, into 
 the presence of the people's representatives at Washington, only to 
 vindicate his name ; and when that was achieved, he was once 
 more communing with his own thoughts among the groves of the 
 Hermitage. 
 
 It was not his own ambition which brought him again to the 
 public view. The affection of Tennessee compelled him to resume 
 a seat on the floor of the American Senate, and, after years of the 
 intensest political strife, Andrew Jackson was elected President of 
 the United States. 
 
 Far from advancing his own pretensions, he always kept them 
 back, and had for years repressed the solicitations of his friends to 
 become a candidate. He felt sensibly that he was devoid of scien- 
 tific culture, and little familiar with letters; and he never obtruded 
 his opinions, or preferred claims to place. But, whenever his 
 opinion was demanded, he was always ready to pronounce it ; and 
 whenever his country invoked his services, he did not shrink even 
 from the station which had been filled by the most cultivated men 
 our nation had produced. 
 
 Behold, then, the unlettered man of the West, the nursling of 
 the wilds, the farmer of the Hermitage, little versed in books, un- 
 connected by science with the tradition of the past, raised by the 
 will of the people to the highest pinnacle of honour, to the central 
 post in the civilization of republican freedom, to the station where 
 all the nations of the earth would watch his actions — where his 
 words would vibrate through the civilized world, and his spirit be 
 the moving-star to guide the nations. What policy will he pur- 
 sue. ? What wisdom will he bring with him from the forest? 
 What rules of duty will he evolve from the oracles of his own 
 mind? 
 
 The man of the West came as the inspired prophet of the West : 
 he came as one free from the bonds of hereditary or established 
 custom ; he came with no superior but conscience, no oracle but 
 his native judgment : and. true to his origin and his education — 
 true to the conditions and circumstances of his advancement, he 
 valued right more than usage ; he reverted from the pressure of 
 established interests to the energy of first principles. 
 
 We tread on ashes, where the fire is not vet extinguished: vet 
 not to dwell on his career as president, were to leave out of view 
 the grandest illustrations of his magnanimity. 
 
 The legislation of the Unitt d States had followed the precedents 
 of the legislation of European monarchies ; it was the office of 
 
Bancroft's eulogy. 43 
 
 Jackson to lift the country out of the European forms of legisla- 
 tion, and to open to it a career resting on American sentiment and 
 American freedom. He would have freedom everywhere — free- 
 dom under the restraints of right ; freedom of industry, of com- 
 merce, of mind ; of universal action ;. freedom, unshackled by re- 
 strictive privileges, unrestrained by the thraldom of monopolies. 
 
 The unity of his mind and his consistency were without a paral- 
 lel. With natural dialectics, he developed the political doctrines 
 that suited every emergency, with a precision and a harmony that 
 no theorist could hope to equal. On every subject in politics — I 
 speak but a fact — he was thoroughly and profoundly and immovea- 
 bly radical ; and would sit for hours, and in a continued flow of 
 remark make the application of his principles to every question 
 that could arise in legislation, or in the interpretation of the con- 
 stitution. 
 
 His expression of himself was so clear, that his influence per- 
 vaded not our land only, but all America and all mankind. They 
 say that, in the physical world, the magnetic fluid is so diffused, 
 that its vibrations are discernible simultaneously in every part of 
 the globe. So it is with the element of freedom. And as Jackson 
 developed its doctrines from their source in the mind of humanity, 
 the popular sympathy was moved and agitated throughout the 
 world, till his name grew everywhere to be the symbol of popular 
 power. 
 
 Himself the witness of the ruthlessness of savage life, he planned 
 the removal of the Indian tribes beyond the limits of the organized 
 states ; and it is the result of his determined policy that the region 
 east of the Mississippi has been transferred to the exclusive posses- 
 sion of cultivated man. 
 
 A pupil of the wilderness, his heart was with the pioneers of 
 American life towards the setting sun. No American statesman 
 has ever embraced within his affections a scheme so liberal for the 
 emigrants as that of Jackson. He longed to secure to them, not 
 pre-emption rights only, but more than pre-emption rights. He 
 longed to invite labour to take possession of the unoccupied fields 
 without money and without price ; with no obligation except the 
 pprpetual devotion of itself by allegiance to its country. Under 
 the beneficent influence of his opinions, the sons of misfortune, the 
 children of adventure, find their way to the uncultivated West. 
 There, in some wilderness glade, or in the thick forest of the fertile 
 plain, or where the prairies most sparkle with flowers, they, like 
 the wild bee which sets them the example of industry, may choose 
 their home, mark the extent of their possessions by driving stakes 
 or blazing trees, shelter their log-cabin with the boughs and turf, 
 and teach the virgin soil to yield itself to the ploughshare. Theirs 
 shall be the soil, tlvirs the beautiful farms which they teach to be 
 
44 MONUMENT TO .TACKSOX. 
 
 productive. Come, children of sorrow ! you on whom the Old 
 World frowns ; crowd fearlessly to the forests ; plant your homes 
 in confidence, for the country watches over you : your children 
 grow around you as hostages, and the wilderness, at your bidding, 
 surrenders its grandeur of useless luxuriance to the beauty and love- 
 liness of culture. Yet, beautiful and lovely as is this scene, it still 
 by far falls short of the ideal which lived in the affections of Jack- 
 son. His heart was ever with the pioneer ; his policy ever favoured 
 the diffusion of independent freeholds throughout the labouring 
 classes of our land. 
 
 It would be a sin against the occasion, were I to omit to com- 
 memorate the deep devotedness of Jackson to the cause and to the 
 rights of labour. It was for the welfare of the labouring; classes 
 that he defied all the storms of political hostility. He longed to 
 secure to labour the fruits of its own industry ; and he unceasingly 
 opposed every system which tended to lessen their reward, or 
 which exposed them to be defrauded of their dues. The labourers 
 may bend over his grave with affectionate sorrow ; for never, in 
 the tide of time, did a statesman exist more heartily resolved to 
 protect them in their rights, and to advance their happiness. For 
 their benefit, he opposed partial legislation ; for their benefit, he 
 resisted all artificial methods of controlling labour, and subjecting 
 it to capital. It was for their benefit that he loved freedom in all 
 its forms — freedom of the individual in personal independence, 
 freedom of the states as separate sovereignties. He never would 
 listen to counsels which tended to the centralization of power. 
 The true American system presupposes the diffusion of freedom — 
 organized life in all the parts of the American body politic, as there 
 is organized life in every part of the human system. Jackson was 
 deaf to every counsel which sought to subject general labour to a 
 central will. His vindication of the just principles of the constitu- 
 tion derived its sublimity from his deep conviction that this strict 
 construction is required by the lasting welfare of the great labour- 
 ing classes of the United States. 
 
 To this end, Jackson revived the tribunicial power of the veto, 
 and exerted it against the decisive action of both branches of Con- 
 gress, against the votes, the wishes, the entreaties of personal and 
 political friends. "Show me," was his reply to them, " show me 
 an express clause in the constitution authorizing Congress to take 
 the business of state legislatures out of their hands." " You will 
 ruin us all," cried a firm partisan friend, " you will ruin your party 
 and your own prospects.'' "Providence," answered Jackson, 
 " will take care of me ;" and he persevered. 
 
 In proceeding to discharge the debt of the United States — a mea- 
 sure thoroughly American — Jackson followed the example of his 
 predecessors ; but he followed it with the full consciousness that 
 
Bancroft's eulogy. 45 
 
 he was rescuing the country from the artificial system of finance 
 which had prevailed throughout the world ; and with him it formed 
 a part of a system by which American legislation was to separate 
 itself more and more effectually from European precedents, and de- 
 velope itself more and more, according to the vital principles of our 
 political existence. 
 
 The discharge of the debt brought with it, of necessity, a great 
 reduction of the public burdens, and brought, of necessity, into 
 view, the question, how far America should follow, of choice, the 
 old restrictive system of high duties, under which Europe had op- 
 pressed America ; or how far she should rely on her own freedom 
 and enterprise and power, defying the competition, and seeking 
 the markets, and receiving the products of the world. 
 
 The mind of Jackson, on this subject, reasoned clearly, and with- 
 out passion. In the abuses of the system of revenue by excessive 
 imposts, he saw evils which the public mind would remedy; and, 
 inclining with the whole might of his energetic nature to the side 
 of revenue duties, he made his earnest but tranquil appeal to the 
 judgment of the people. 
 
 The portions of country that suffered most severely from a sys- 
 tem of legislation, which, in its extreme character as it then existed, 
 is now universally acknowledged to have been unequal and unjust, 
 were less tranquil ; and rallying on the doctrines of freedom, which 
 made our government a limited one, they saw in the oppressive acts 
 an assumption of power which was nugatory, because it was exer- 
 cised, as they held, without authority from the people. 
 
 The contest that ensued was the most momentous in our annals. 
 The greatest minds of America engaged in the discussion. Elo- 
 quence never achieved sublimer triumphs in the American Senate, 
 than on those occasions. The country became deeply divided; 
 and the antagonist elements were arrayed against each other under 
 forms of clashing authority, menacing civil war ; the freedom of 
 the several states was invoked against the power of the United 
 States ; and under the organization of a state in convention, the 
 reserved rights of the people were summoned to display their 
 energy, and balance the authority and neutralize the legislation of 
 the central government. The states were agitated with prolonged 
 excitement ; the friends of freedom throughout the world looked on 
 with divided sympathies, praying that the union of the states might 
 be perpetual, and also that the commerce of the world might be 
 free. 
 
 Fortunately for the country, and fortunately for mankind, An- 
 drew Jackson was at the helm of state, the representative of the 
 principles that were to allay excitement, and to restore the hopes 
 of peace and freedom. By nature, by impulse, by education, by 
 conviction, a friend to personal freedom — by education, political 
 
46 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 sympathies, and the fixed habit of his mind, a friend to the rights 
 of the states — unwilling that the liberty of the states should be 
 trampled under foot — unwilling that the constitution should lose its 
 vigour or be impaired, he rallied for the constitution : and in its 
 name he published to the world, "The Union: it must ee pre- 
 served." The words were a spell to hush evil passion, and to re- 
 move oppression. Under his guiding influence, the favoured inter- 
 ests, which had struggled to perpetuate unjust legislation, yielded 
 to the voice of moderation and reform ; and every mind that had 
 for a moment contemplated a rupture of the states, discarded it for 
 ever. The whole influence of the past was invoked in favour of 
 the constitution ; from the council chambers of the fathers who 
 moulded our institutions — from the hall where American indepen- 
 dence was declared, the clear, loud cry was uttered — " The Union : 
 it must be preserved." From every battle-field of the Revolution 
 — from Lexington and Bunker-Hill — from Saratoga and Yorktown 
 — from the fields of Eutaw — from the cane-brakes that sheltered the 
 men of Marion — the repeated, long-prolonged echoes came up — 
 "The Union: it must be preserved." From every valley in our 
 land — from every cabin on the pleasant mountain sides — from the 
 ships at our wharves — from the tents of the hunter in our western- 
 most prairies — from the living minds of the living millions of Ame- 
 rican freemen — from the thickly coming glories of futurity — the 
 shout went up like the sound of many waters, " The Union : it 
 must be preserved." The friends of the protective system, and 
 they who had denounced the protective system — the statesmen of 
 the north, that had wounded the constitution in their love of cen- 
 tralism — the statesmen of the south, whose minds had carried to its 
 extreme the theory of state rights — all conspired together; all 
 breathed prayers for the perpetuity of the Union. Under the pru- 
 dent firmness of Jackson — under the mixture of justice and general 
 regard for all interests, the greatest danger to our institutions was 
 turned aside, and mankind was encouraged to believe that our 
 Union, like our freedom, is imperishable. 
 
 The moral of the great events of those days is this : that the peo- 
 ple can discern right, and will make their way to a knowledge of 
 right ; that the whole human mind, and therefore with it the mind 
 of the nation, has a continuous, ever improving existence ; that the 
 appeal from the unjust legislation of to-day must be made quietly, 
 earnestly, perseveringly, to the more enlightened collective reason 
 of to-morrow ; that submission is due to the popular will, in the 
 confidence that the people, when in error, will amend their doings ; 
 that in a popular government, injustice is neither to be established 
 by force, nor to be resisted by force ; in a word, that the Union, 
 which was constituted by consent, must be preserved by love. 
 
Bancroft's eulogy. 47 
 
 It rarely falls to the happy lot of a statesman to receive such 
 unanimous applause from the heart of a nation. Duty to the dead 
 demands that, on this occasion, the course of measures should not 
 pass unnoticed, in the progress of which, his vigour of character 
 most clearly appeared, and his conflict with opposing parties was 
 most violent and protracted. 
 
 From his home in Tennessee, Jackson came to the presidency 
 resolved to lift American legislation out of the forms of English 
 legislation, and to place our laws on the currency in harmony with 
 the principles of our government. He came to the presidency of 
 the United States resolved to deliver the government from the 
 Bank of the United States, and to restore the regulation of ex- 
 changes to the rightful depository of that power — the commerce of 
 the country. He had designed to declare his views on this subject 
 in his inaugural address, but was persuaded to relinquish that pur- 
 pose, on the ground that it belonged rather to a legislative message. 
 When the period for addressing Congress drew near, it was still 
 urged that to attack the bank would forfeit his popularity and secure 
 his future defeat. " It is not," he answered, " it is not for m} r self 
 that I care." It was urged that haste was unnecessary, as the bank 
 had still six unexpended years of chartered existence. " I may 
 die," he replied, " before another Congress comes together, and I 
 could not rest quietly in my grave, if I failed to do what I hold so 
 essential to the liberty of my country." And his first annual mes- 
 sage announced to the country that the bank was neither constitu- 
 tional nor expedient. In this he was in advance of the friends 
 about him, in advance of Congress, and in advance of his party. 
 This is no time for the analysis of measures, or the discussion of 
 questions of political economy : on the present occasion, we have 
 to contemplate the character of the man. 
 
 Never, from the first moment of his administration to the last, 
 was there a calm in the strife of parties on the subject of the cur- 
 rency ; and never, during the whole period, did he recede or falter. 
 Always in advance of his party — always having near him friends 
 who cowered before the hardihood of his courage, he himself, 
 throughout all the contest, was unmoved, from the first suggestion 
 of the unconstitutionalit}' of the bank, to the moment when he him- 
 self, first of all, reasoning from the certain tendency of its policy, 
 with singular sagacity predicted to unbelieving friends, the coming 
 insolvency of the institution. 
 
 The storm throughout the country rose with unexampled vehe- 
 mence : his opponents were not satisfied with addressing the public 
 or Congress, or his cabinet ; they threw their whole force person- 
 al^ on him. From all parts men pressed around him, urging him, 
 entreating him to bend. Congress was flexible ; many of his per- 
 sonal friends faltered ; the impetuous swelling wave rolled on, with- 
 
r 
 
 48 MO.M'MEXT TO JACttSCW. 
 
 out one sufficient obstacle, till it reached his presence ; but, as it 
 dashed in its highest fury at his feet, it broke before his firmness. 
 The commanding majesty of his will appalled his opponents and 
 revived his friends. He, himself, had a proud consciousness that 
 his will was indomitable. Standing over the rocks of the Rip 
 Raps, and looking out upon the ocean, " Providence," said he to a 
 friend, " Providence may change my determination ; but man no 
 more can do it, than he can remove these Rip Raps, which have 
 resisted the rolling; ocean from the beginning of time." And though 
 a panic was spreading through the land, and the whole credit sys- 
 tem, as it then existed, was crumbling to pieces and crashing around 
 him, he stood erect, like a massive column, which the heaps of 
 falling ruins could not break, nor bend, nor sway from its fixed 
 foundation. 
 
 [At this point Mr. Bancroft turned to address the Mayor of the 
 city of Washington ; but, finding him not present, he proceeded.] 
 
 People of the District of Columbia, — I should fail of a duty on 
 this occasion, if I did not give utterance to your sentiment of grati- 
 tude which followed General" Jackson into retirement. Dwelling 
 amongst you, he desired your prosperity. This beautiful city, sur- 
 rounded by heights the most attractive, watered by a river so mag- 
 nificent, the home of the gentle and the cultivated, not less than 
 the seat of political power — this city, whose site Washington had 
 selected, was dear to his affections ; and if he won your grateful 
 attachment by adorning it with monuments of useful architecture, 
 by establishing its credit, and relieving its burdens, he regretted 
 only that he had not the opportunity to have connected himself 
 still more intimately with your prosperity. 
 
 As he prepared to take his final leave of the district, the mass of 
 the population of this city, and the masses that had gathered from 
 around, followed his carriage in crowds. All in silence stood near 
 him, to wish him adieu ; and as the cars started, and he displayed 
 his gray hairs, as he lifted his hat in token of farewell, you stood 
 around with heads uncovered, too full of emotion to speak, in 
 solemn silence gazing on him as he departed, never more to be seen 
 in your midst. 
 
 Behold the warrior and statesman, his work well done, retired to 
 the Hermitage, to hold converse with his forests, to cultivate his 
 farm, to gather around him hospitably his friends! Who was like 
 him ? He was still the loadstar of the American people. His 
 fervid thoughts, frankly uttered, still spread the flame of patriotism 
 through the American breast ; his counsels were still listened to 
 with reverence; and, almost alone among statesmen, he in his re- 
 tirement was in harmony with every onward movement of his 
 time. His prevailing influence assisted to sway a neighbouring 
 nation to desire to share our institutions, his ear heard the footsteps 
 
danckoft's eulogy. 49 
 
 of the coming millions that are to gladden our western shores ; and 
 his eye discerned in the dim distance the whitening sails that are 
 to enliven the waters of the Pacific with the social sounds of our 
 successful commerce. 
 
 Age had whitened his locks, and dimmed his eye, and spread 
 around him the infirmities and venerable emblems of many years 
 of toilsome service ; but his heart beat as warmly as in his youth, 
 and his courage was as firm as it had ever been in the day of battle. 
 f$ut while his affections were still for his friends and his country, 
 his thoughts were already in a better world. That exalted mind, 
 which in active life had always had unity of perception and will, 
 which in action had never faltered from doubt, and which in coun- 
 cil had always reverted to first principles and general laws, now 
 gave itself up to communing with the Infinite. He was a believer : 
 from feeling, from experience, from conviction. Not a shadow of 
 scepticism ever dimmed the lustre of his mind. Proud philosopher ! 
 will you smile to know that Andrew Jackson perused reverently 
 his Psalter and Prayer-book and Bible ? Know that Andrew Jack- 
 son had faith in the eternity of truth, in the imperishable power of 
 popular freedom, in the destinies of humanity, in the virtues and 
 capacity of the people, in his country's institutions, in the being 
 and overruling providence of a merciful and ever-living God. 
 
 The last moment of his life on earth is at hand. It is the Sab- 
 bath of the Lord : the brightness and beauty of summer clothe the 
 fields around him : nature is in her glory ; but the sublimest specta- 
 cle on that day, on earth, was the victory of his unblenching spirit 
 over death itself. 
 
 When he first felt the hand of death upon him, " May my 
 enemies," he cried, " find peace ; may the liberties of my country 
 endure for ever !" 
 
 When his exhausted system, under the excess of pain, sunk, for 
 a moment, from debility, "Do not weep," said he to his adopted 
 daughter ; " my sufferings are less than those of Christ upon the 
 cross ;" for he, too, as a disciple of the cross, could have devoted 
 himself, in sorrow, for mankind. Feeling his end near, he would 
 see all his family once more ; and he spoke to them, one by. one, 
 in words of tenderness and affection. His two little grandchildren 
 were absent at Sunday-school. He asked for them ; and as they 
 came, he prayed for them, and kissed them, and blessed them. 
 His servants were then admitted : they gathered, some in his room, 
 and some on the outside of the house, clinging to the windows, that 
 they might gaze and hear. And that dying man, thus surrounded, 
 in a gush of fervid eloquence, spoke with inspiration of God, of the 
 Redeemer, of salvation through the atonement, of immortality, of 
 heaven. For he ever thought that pure and undefiled religion was 
 the foundation of private happiness, and the bulwark of republican 
 5 
 
50 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 institutions. Having spoken of immortality in perfect conscious 
 ness of his own approaching end, he bade them all farewell. 
 " Dear children," such were his final words, " dear children, ser- 
 vants and friends, I trust to meet you all in heaven, both white and 
 black — all, both white and black." And having borne his testi- 
 mony to immortality, he bowed his mighty head, and, without a 
 groan, the spirit of the greatest man of his age escaped to the bosom 
 of his God. 
 
 In life, his career had been like the blaze of the sun in the fierce- 
 ness of its noon-day glory ; his death was lovely as the mildest 
 sunset of a summer's evening, when the sun goes down in tranquil 
 beauty without a cloud. To the majestic energy of an indomitable 
 will, he joined a heart capable of the purest and most devoted love, 
 rich in the tenderest affections. On the bloody battle-field of To- 
 hopeka, he saved an infant that clung to the breast of its dying 
 mother : in the stormiest moment of his presidency, at the immi- 
 nent moment of decision, he paused in his way to give good coun- 
 sel to a poor suppliant that had come up to him for succour. Of the 
 .strifes in which he was engaged in his earlier life, not one sprung 
 from himself, but in every case he became involved by standing 
 forth as the champion of the weak, the poor, and the defenceless, 
 to shelter the gentle against oppression, to protect the emigrant 
 against the avarice of the speculator. His generous soul revolted 
 at the barbarous practice of duels, and by no man in the land have 
 so many been prevented. 
 
 The sorrows of those that were near to him went deeply into his 
 soul : and at the anguish of the wife whom he loved, the orphans 
 whom he adopted, he would melt into tears, and weep and sob like 
 a child. 
 
 No man in private life so possessed the hearts of all around him: 
 no public man of this century ever returned to private life with 
 such an abiding mastery over the affections of the people. No man 
 with truer instinct received American ideas : no man expressed 
 them so completely, or so boldly, or so sincerely. He was as sin- 
 cere a man as ever lived. He was wholly, always, and altogether 
 sincere and true. 
 
 Up to the last, he dared do anything that it was right to do. 
 He united personal courage and moral courage beyond any man of 
 whom history keeps the record. Before the nation, before the 
 world, before coming ages, he stands forth the representative, for 
 his generation, of the American mind. And the secret of his great- 
 ness is this : By intuitive conception, he shared and possessed all 
 the creative ideas of his country and his time. He expressed them 
 with dauntless intrepidity ; he enforced them with an immoveable 
 will; he executed them with an electric power that attracted and 
 swayed the American people. The nation, in his time, had not 
 
Bancroft's eulogy. 51 
 
 one great thought, of which he was not the boldest and clearest 
 expositor. 
 
 History does not describe the man that equalled him in firmness 
 of nerve. Not danger, not an army in battle array, not wounds, 
 not wide-spread clamour, not age, not the anguish of disease, could 
 impair in the least degree the vigour of his steadfast mind. The 
 •heroes of antiquity would have contemplated with awe the un- 
 matched hardihood of his character ; and Napoleon, had he pos- 
 sessed his disinterested will, could never have been vanquished. 
 Jackson never was vanquished. He was always fortunate. He 
 conquered the wilderness ; he conquered the savage : he conquered 
 the bravest veterans trained in the battle-fields of Europe ; he con- 
 quered everywhere in statesmanship: and, when death came to get 
 the mastery over him, he turned that last enemy aside as tranquilly 
 as he had done the feeblest of his adversaries, and escaped from 
 earth in the triumphant consciousness of immortality. 
 
 His body has its fit resting-place in the great central valley of 
 the Mississippi ; his spirit rests upon our whole territory ; it hovers 
 over the vales of Oregon, and guards, in advance, the frontier of 
 the Del Norte. The fires of party spirit are quenched at his grave. 
 His faults and frailties have perished. Whatever of good he has 
 done, lives, and will live for ever. 
 
EULOGY 
 
 DELIVERED AT PHILADELPHIA, JUNE 26, 1845, 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE M. DALLAS, 
 
 VICE-PRESIDENT OK THE DN1TED STATES. 
 
 Fellow-Citizens and Feiends — The sorrows of a nation, on the 
 loss of a great and good man, are alike confirmed and assuaged by 
 recurring to the virtues and services which endeared him. While 
 funeral solemnities, such as are now in progress, attest the per- 
 vading regrets of communities, and swelling tears betray the 
 anguish of individual friendship; while the muffled drum, the 
 shrouded ensign, and the silent march of mingled processions of 
 citizens and soldiery, address their impressive force to the hearts 
 of all, it is well to seek solace in remembrances which must 
 brighten for ever the annals of our country, and which add more 
 to the list of names whose mere utterance exalts the pride and 
 strengthens the foundations of patriotism. 
 
 At the epoch when, in September, 1774, the delegates of eleven 
 colonies assembled at our Carpenters' Hall, before the first gun was 
 ' fired at Lexington, in the cause of western liberty, or Washington 
 was yet hailed as " General and Commander-in-Chief," there could 
 be seen in the wilds of the Waxhaw settlement in South Carolina, 
 on a farm in a dangerous proximity to Indian tribes, and clustering 
 with two elder brothers around a widowed mother, a boy about 
 eight years of age, in whose veins coursed the same gallant blood 
 that shortly after gushed from the wounds of Montgomery into the 
 trenches of Quebec : that boy, moulded in the spirit of those stern 
 times, clinging with his whole soul to the American people, 
 ripened into athletic manhood, enfeebled by toil, by disease, and by 
 age — is just now dead; and you have invited me to pronounce 
 over his yet loose grave the tribute of your affectionate gratitude 
 and veneration ; to soothe you by reminding you of the attributes 
 and exploits of one who lived through all your heroic history, and 
 was himself an inseparable part of it — who was born on your soil 
 when, in fact, it was a mere margin of eastern coast, and had sunk 
 
 (52) 
 
Dallas's eulogy. 53 
 
 nidi it, when a continent — who know you When but two millions 
 of .scattered, weak, dependent, and disquieted provincialists, and 
 yet saw you, ere he ceased to know you, an immense, united, 
 powerful and peaceful nation! It is impossible, on the present oc- 
 casion, and with short notice, to do justice to a task so protracted, 
 complicate and ennobling: but there are incidents and sentiments 
 conned id with the character and career of Andrew Jackson, with 
 which his countrymen unanimously sympathize, and which his 
 public obsequies seem as appropriately as irresistibly to call into 
 expression. 
 
 The stripling orphan, while mourning over the loss of kindred, 
 smarting under wounds and imprisonment, and hourly witnessing 
 some new cruelty committed upon friends and neighbours, imbibed, 
 dtiiing the storms of our Revolution, a deep, uncompromising, 
 almost tierce love of country, that never lost its way over his 
 actions. It became to him an impulse as instinctive and irrepressi- 
 ble as breathing, and cannot but be regarded by those who trace his 
 eVentful existence as the master passion of his nature. He passed 
 through the war of 1776, in all but that, too youthful for his trials ; 
 nor was there ever a moment in his after-being when this devotion 
 can be said to have waned or slumbered in his breast. Such a trait, 
 so pure, so ardent, so unvarying — as fresh three weeks ago as 
 seventy years before — as prompt and eager amid the frosts of age, 
 as when in the spring of life it first kindled at the voice of Wash- 
 ington — invokes, now that the door of his sepulchre is closed, un- 
 dissembled and undissenting praise. It is this quality of moral 
 excellence which forms the basis of his fame, as it was the stimu- 
 lant to every achievement. From his fight, under Davie, with 
 Bryan's regiment of tories, in 1780, when scarcely thirteen years 
 of age, down to the close of his remarkable campaign in Florida, 
 when fifty-two, and thenceforward through all his diplomatic con- 
 flicts with foreign powers, it shone with steady intensity. 
 
 The peace of 1783 found him the only survivor of his family; 
 left as it were alone, to face the snares of the world uneducated 
 and still a boy. His small patrimony melted away before he could 
 check the reckless and prodigal habits to which he had been trained 
 by eight years of wild and desperate strife. There was no one to 
 counsel or to guide him : no one to inculcate lessons of prudence; 
 no one to lead him into the paths of useful industry and of 
 restored tranquillity — but Jackson wanted no one. At this, per- 
 haps the most critical period of his life, the " iron will" subse- 
 quently attributed to his treatment of others, was nobly exercised 
 in governing himself. Energetically entering upon the study of 
 the law, the native force of his intellect enabled him, soon after 
 attaining his majority, not merely to preserve his personal inde- 
 pendence, but to carve his way to recognised distinction. The 
 5 * 
 
54 
 
 monument to Jackson. 
 
 sphere of his professional practice, the western district of North 
 Carolina, now the state of Tennessee, exacted labours and teemed 
 with dangers such only as a resolution like his could encounter and 
 surmount. Infested with enraged Chcrokees and Choctaws, its 
 wilderness of two hundred miles, crossed and recrossed by the 
 undaunted public solicitor more than twenty times, inured him to 
 fatigue, to the sense of life constantly in peril, and to attacks and 
 artifices of savage enemies whom he was destined signally to sub- 
 due and disperse. It cannot be necessary to pursue these details 
 further : no doubt it will recollected that after aiding to form a con- 
 stitution for the state he has illustrated, General Jackson, at the age 
 of thirty, became her first and only representative in Congress — 
 was almost immediately transferred, in November, 1797, to the 
 Senate of the United States, and, unwilling to prolong his legisla- 
 tive services, became a judge of the Supreme Court of Tennessee. 
 In all these elevated stations, and especially in the last, his saga- 
 cious mind, directed by motives at once pure and lofty, and sus- 
 tained by a spirit of unconquerable firmness, has left monuments of 
 practical wisdom and usefulness, in maintaining the rights and 
 ameliorating the condition of his countrymen, which time cannot 
 efface. 
 
 When the prolonged aggressions of Great Britain upon the ma- 
 ritime rights, commerce, and honour of America, prompted, in 
 1812, a declaration of hostilities, our hero, though watchful of 
 events and keenly alive to their bearing, had retired from public 
 activity, and was engaged in the calm pursuits of agricultural life. 
 That signal sounded with welcome, in his seclusion, and summoned 
 him to a deathless renown. It came to his quick ear like a long 
 wished-for permit to avenge the wrongs and re-establish the sullied 
 name of those for whom he was ever ready to sacrifice, without 
 stint, his repose, his fortune, and his blood. The war-cry of his 
 country scarcely vibrated on the breeze ere he echoed it back as a 
 music with which every chord of his soul was in unison. In less 
 than a week, leaving his plough in its yet opening furrow, and his 
 ripe harvest drooping for the sickle, he stood equipped and eager, 
 in front of two thousand five hundred volunteers, awaiting orders 
 from the chief executive. 
 
 I must not, I dare not, quit the singleness of my subject, to 
 indulge in reminiscences but partially connected with it, however 
 alluring. Yet had the great and generous champion whom we 
 lament, a host of associates, competitors with him in the proud 
 struggle of which would risk most, suffer most, and achieve most, 
 in exemplifying the prowess, securing the safety, and exalting the 
 reputation of their country. That, indeed, may be considered as 
 in itself an ample eulogium upon human merit which depicts him 
 as in the van of a roll emblazoned by such names as Scott, Harri- 
 
dallas's eulogy. 55 
 
 son, Brown, Shelby, Johnson, Gaines, Ripley, Hull, Decatur, 
 Perry, and McDonough. Most of these have gone to graves 
 over which are blooming, in unfading verdure, the laurels our gra- 
 titude planted — none of them can present to posterity a title to im- 
 mortal honour more conclusive than that involved in their having 
 shared with Jackson the glories of 1812. 
 
 There are some fields of public service from which ordinary 
 patriotism not unusually recoils, and of this kind is military action 
 against the comparatively weak, yet fierce and wily tribes of sa- 
 vages still occupying parts of their original domain on our continent. 
 Unregulated by the principles of civilized warfare, Indian cam- 
 paigns and conflicts are accompanied by constant scenes of revolt- 
 ing and unnecessary cruelty. Neither age nor sex, nor condition 
 is spared ; havoc and destruction are the only ends at which the 
 tomahawk, once brandished, can be stayed. In exact proportion, 
 however, to the horrors of such a system, is the necessity of pro- 
 tecting those of our people exposed to it by the most prompt and 
 decisive resorts. When, in the midst of the great struggle with an 
 European monarchy, the frontiers of Georgia and Tennessee were 
 suddenly assailed by ferocious Creeks, all eyes turned, appealing 
 with confidence for security, to him who was known to the foe 
 themselves by the descriptive designations of " Long Arrow" and 
 " Sharp Knife." No one, indeed, exhibited in higher perfection 
 the two qualities essential to such a contest — sagacity and courage. 
 
 The sagacity of General Jackson was the admiration of the 
 sophist, and the wonder of the savage ; it unravelled the meshes of 
 both, without the slightest seeming effort. Piercing through every 
 subtlety or stratagem, it attained the truth with electrical rapidity. 
 It detected at a glance the toils of an adversary, and discerned the 
 mode by which these toils could best be baffled. His courage was 
 equally finished and faultless — quick, but cool — easily aroused, but 
 never boisterous — concentrated, enduring, and manly. No enemy 
 could intimidate, no dangers fright him ; no surprise shook his pre- 
 sence of mind, as no emergency transcended his self-control. The 
 red braves of the wilderness confessed that in these, their highest 
 virtues, General Jackson equalled the most celebrated of their 
 chiefs. Invoked to the rescue, he roused from a bed of suffering 
 and debility, among the terrified fugitives, addressing them with 
 brief but animating exhortation: "Your frontier is threatened with 
 invasion by the savage foe. Already are they marching to your 
 borders with their scalping-knives unsheathed to butcher your 
 women and children. Time is not to be lost. We must hasten to 
 the frontier, or we shall find it drenched with the blood of our citi- 
 zens. The health of your general is restored ; — he will command 
 in person." 
 
 It was in the progress of this exhibition, in regions at once deso- 
 
56 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 latod and unproductive, that this patient and persevering fortitude 
 overcame obstacles of appalling magnitude ; — and here it was that, 
 ■with touching kindness, when suffering the cravings of famine, he 
 offered to divide with one of his own soldiers the handful of acorns 
 he had secretly hoarded! The three victories of Talledega, Emuck- 
 faw, and Enotochopco, purchased with incredible fatigue, expo- 
 sure, and loss of life, are not only to be valued in reference to the 
 population and territory they pacified and redeemed, but as having 
 disclosed, just in time for the crisis of the main war, the transcen- 
 dent ability and fitness of him who was destined to stamp its close 
 with an exploit of unrivalled heroism and consummate generalship. 
 
 Shall I abruptly recall the battle of New Orleans ? — recall, did I 
 say ? Js it ever absent from the memory of an American ? Mingled 
 indissolubly with the thought of country, it springs to mind as 
 Thermopylae or Marathon, when Greece is named. He who gave 
 that battle, with all its splendid preliminaries and results, to our 
 chronicles of national valour, may cease to be mortal, but can never 
 cease to be renowned. He may have a grave, but, like the Father 
 of his Country, he can want no monument but posterity. 
 
 The judgment of the world has been irreversibly passed upon 
 that extraordinary achievement of our republican soldier. Analyzed 
 in all its plans, its means, its motives, and its execution — the genius 
 that conceived, the patriotism that impelled, the boldness that never 
 backed, nor paused, nor counted :. the skill which trebled every 
 resource, the activity that was everywhere, the end that accom- 
 plished everything. It was a master-piece of work which C?esar, 
 William Tell, Napoleon, and Washington, could unite in applaud- 
 ing. Even the vanquished, soothed by the magnanimity of their 
 victor, have since, laid the tribute of their admiration at his feet. 
 For that battle, in itself and alone, as now passed into the imper- 
 ishable records of history, an exhaustless fund of moral property, 
 our descendants in distant ages will teach their children, as they 
 imbibe heroism from illustration and example, to murmur their 
 blessings. 
 
 I have dwelt, fellow-citizens, with perhaps unnecessary length, 
 upon the martial merits of the deceased. I have done so, because 
 these merits are incontestable, and form, apart from every other 
 consideration, an overwhelming claim to the veneration and grati- 
 tude we are now displaying. To me, personally, as you all know, 
 it would be alike consistent and natural to go much farther ; but, 
 entertaining a real deference for the sentiments of others, I should 
 be unable to pardon myself if, on an occasion so peculiarly solemn, 
 a single word fell from my lips which did not chime with the tone 
 of every bosom present. The time has not come, and among a 
 free, fearless, and frank people, such as you are, it may possibly 
 never come, when the civic characteristics of Jackson, during his 
 
dallas's eulogy. 57 
 
 chief magistracy of eight years, can be other than topics of sincere 
 differences of opinion. 
 
 Springing, however, directly from what I have considered as the 
 great root of his public services, is at least one branch of his execu- 
 tive policy and action that need not be avoided. If, as a Revolu- 
 tionary lad, he clung to the cause of the colonists; — if, as a soldier, 
 he knew no shrinking from his flag ; — as a president of these states, 
 he stood, without budging, on the rock of their Union. It seemed 
 as if, to him, that was hallowed ground, ungenial to the weeds of 
 party, identical indeed with country. Count the cost of this con- 
 federacy, and he was scornfully silent ; speak of disregarding her 
 laws, and his remonstrances were vehement ; move but a hair's 
 breadth to end the compact, and he was in arms ! On this vast 
 concern, involving, directly or remotely, all the precious objects 
 of American civilization, his zeal was as uncompromising, perhaps 
 as unrefining and undiscriminating, as his convictions were pro- 
 found. The extent of our obligation to him in regard to it cannot 
 well be exaggerated. Possessing in his high office the opportunity, 
 he gave to his purpose an impetus and an emphasis, that will keep 
 for ever ringing in the ears of his successors — " The Union must 
 and shall be preserved /" 
 
 Such was the hero we mourn ! With a constitution undermined 
 by privations incident to his military labours, and a frame shat- 
 tered by diseases, he had retired to the seclusion of the Hermitage, 
 long and patiently awaiting the only and final relief from suffering. 
 It came to him on the evening of the 8th instant, in the centre of 
 his home's affectionate circle, while his great mind was calm and 
 unclouded, and when his heart was prepared to welcome its dila- 
 tory messenger. Yes! yes! he on whom for half a century his 
 country gazed as upon a tower of strength — on whom she never 
 called for succour against the desolating savage, without being 
 answered by a rushing shout of, " Onward, to the rescue!" — who 
 anticipated her invading foes by destroying them ere their foot- 
 prints on her soil were cold — he, the iron warrior, the reproach- 
 less patriot, has ceased to be mortal, has willingly made his single 
 surrender — the surrender — the surrender of his soul to its Almighty 
 claimant ! 
 
 It may almost be said that General Jackson was constituted of 
 two natures, so admirably and so distinctly were his qualities 
 adapted to their respective spheres of action. I have portrayed 
 hurriedly and crudely his public character — let us for an instant 
 see him, on one or two points at least, in the other aspect, and per- 
 haps we may thence catch the secret of his sublime and beautiful 
 death. The rugged exterior which rough wars in our early west- 
 ern settlements would naturally impart, was smoothed and polished 
 in him by a spirit of benevolence deeply seated in his temperament. 
 In social intercourse, though always earnest, rapid, impressive, 
 
58 MOXnMK.vr TO JACKSON. 
 
 and upright, his friendship was marked by boundless confidence 
 and generosity ; while in domestic life a winning gentleness seemed 
 to spread from the recesses of his heart over the whole man, filling 
 the scenes around him with smiles of serenity and joy. No husband 
 loved more ardently, more faithfully, more unchangeably — no 
 parent could surpass the self-sacrificing kindness with which he 
 reared and cherished his adopted children — no master could be 
 more certain of reciprocated fondness than he was, when, as ex- 
 piring, he breathed the hope of hereafter meeting in the heaven to 
 which he was hastening, the servants of his household, " as well 
 black as white." The truthfulness of this picture is attested by all 
 who were admitted to the sanctuary of his home — precincts too 
 sacred, even on an occasion equally sacred, for more than this brief 
 intrusion. 
 
 But there was a crowning characteristic, from adverting to which 
 I must not. shrink, though in the presence in which I stand. Gene- 
 ral Jackson was fervently, unaffectedly, and submissively pious ! 
 Wherever he might be, and whatever his absorbing pursuit — 
 wading heavily through the swamps of Florida, on the track of 
 Hillishago ; speeding with the swoop of an eagle, to grapple the 
 invader, Packenham ; careering, at the head of his victorious 
 legions, through throngs of admiring countrymen ; in the halls of 
 the executive mansion ; or at his hearth in the Hermitage ; there, 
 and then, everywhere and always, though not ostensible, and never 
 obtrusive, his faith was with him. But it was most closely and 
 conspicuously with him as dissolution approached' — it was with 
 him to brighten the rays of his mind, to cheer the throbs of his 
 heart, to take the sting from his latest pang, and to give melody to 
 his last farewell ! The dying hour of Jackson bears triumphant 
 testimony to the Christian's hope 
 
 Such was the Hero; such was the 
 Man we mourn ! 
 
 Come, then, my countrymen! let us, as it were, gather round 
 the depository of his remains ! From those who knew him, as it 
 has been my lot to know him, the frequent tear of cherished and 
 proud remembrance must fall. To all of us it will be some relief 
 to join in the simple and sacred sentiment of public gratitude. 
 
 How sleep the brave who sink to rest, 
 By all their country's honours bleat! 
 When Spring, with dewy fingers cold. 
 Returns to seek their hallowed mould, 
 She there shall dress a sweeter sod 
 Than Fancy's feet have ever Irod ; 
 By fairy forms their dirge is sung — 
 By hands unseen their knell is rung; — 
 There Honour comes, a pilgrim gray, 
 To bless the turf that wraps their clay ; 
 And Freedom shall awhile repair 
 To dwell a weeping hermit there ! 
 
EULOGY 
 
 DELIVERED AT NEW YORK CITY, JUNE 24, 1845, 
 
 BY 
 
 B. F. BUTLER, 
 
 LATE ATTORNEY -OENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 Mournful but pleasant, friends and fellow-citizens, is the ser- 
 vice in which we are engaged. Andrew Jackson, upon whose bed 
 of sickness and suffering have been so intently fixed the filial and 
 solicitous regards of the millions of America, is no more. His 
 great soul has ascended to its Author ; his venerable form has sunk 
 into the grave. To that grave, with swelling hearts and tearful 
 eyes, and sad funeral rites, a nation is repairing. We have come 
 to it to-day. While we linger within its sacred precincts, the 
 praises of the hero we reverence, the magistrate we honoured, and 
 the man we loved, rise instinctivel}' to our lips. To their free 
 utterance, affection prompts, duty enjoins, nature compels us. It 
 is fitting, it is right, that such tributes should be paid to those who, 
 in council or in camp, have advanced the glory of their country 
 and the welfare of their kind. The homage thus bestowed is at 
 least disinterested. For the dead who are its objects, insensible alike 
 to praise and to blame, can make no return to the living who prof- 
 fer it. It exerts a humanizing influence on the universal heart ; it 
 promotes the formation of a true national character ; it softens the 
 asperities of party ; it incites to a virtuous emulation. Next, in 
 purity and meetness, to the thanksgiving which we owe the God who 
 gave, and guided, and sustained them, is the feeling of grateful re- 
 verence we should ever cherish towards those who are the instru- 
 ments of His goodness. To the claims of our great men, of every 
 age and time, of every sect and party, let us, then, be faithful. 
 Let history transmit to other generations the story of their lives ; 
 let the canvass and the marble perpetuate the image of their forms; 
 let poetry and music breathe forth their names in hymns and har- 
 monies ; let the united voice of their countrymen echo their praises 
 to the remotest shores — so that, wherever an American footstep 
 shall tread, or the lover of American liberty be found, there, too, 
 
GO MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 the memory of their greatness shall abide — a beauty and an excel- 
 lence — the joy of all the earth ! The facts and incidents which 
 belong to the romantic and eventful life of Andrew Jackson, are 
 too numerous to allow me, on the present occasion, to attempt any 
 extended biographical sketch. After a brief notice of his early 
 life, 1 shall, therefore, confine myself to a general view of such 
 portions of his more active career as seem to me best calculated to 
 illustrate the prominent features of his character, and his more 
 important services to his country. He was the son of respectable 
 parents, belonging to the most hardy, virtuous, and useful of all 
 orders of society — the great middle class. His parents, as is well 
 known, were natives of Ireland, though some of their ancestors 
 were originally from Scotland. They emigrated to South Carolina 
 in 1765. He was born at the Waxhaw settlement, in that state, 
 on the 15th of March, 1767. He died on Sunday, the 8th day of 
 the present month, having been spared to the good old age of more 
 than seventy-eight }-ears ; retaining to the last, in a remarkable 
 degree, his extraordinary intellectual powers, his ardent affections, 
 and his deep interest in the happiness of his friends and the welfare 
 of his country. The peculiarities of his character are in harmony 
 with his extraction. The martyr blood of Scotland blended with 
 that of the Emerald Isle, and modified by the residence of his an- 
 cestors in her genial clime, coursed in his veins; and no man, pro- 
 bably, ever lived, who united, in a higher degree, the firmness and 
 perseverance of the one race with the quick and ardent tempera- 
 ment of the other. Deprived, soon after his birth, of his father, 
 his eldest brother slain during the war of the Revolution, by British 
 troops, himself compelled, by the approach of the enemy, to aban- 
 don, at the age of fourteen, the academy at which he had been 
 placed; freely offering himself, with his sole surviving brother, to 
 the military service of his country ; both soon after captured by 
 the enemy ; hoth assaulted and wounded, because scorning to sub- 
 mit to personal indignity ; the other of the two brothers dying of 
 the wound thus received ; his mother soon after pressed by fatigue 
 and grief into an untimely grave ; was ever an ardent and suscep- 
 tible youth placed in circumstances more likely to make a deep 
 and lasting impression on his character? "The child," to use the 
 words of a great poet of our own times, "the child is father of the 
 man." And when we consider the baptism of blood by which 
 Andrew Jackson, in the spring-time of his youth, was dedicated to 
 the service of his country, can we wonder at the undying faithful- 
 ness, or the burning zeal, with which, from youth to age, he pre- 
 sented himself a living sacrifice at her altar? 
 
 Passing over the intermediate space, we find him, at the age of 
 twenty-one, established in the practice of the law, in what was 
 then one of the back settlements of North Carolina. It was a re- 
 
butler's eulogy. 61 
 
 gion of restless activity, of stirring interest, of wild adventure. The 
 scanty population, thinly scattered over an extensive territory, was 
 constantly exposed to the inroads of powerful tribes of Indians, still 
 the occupants of its primeval forests. They had been subjugated, 
 during the war of the Revolution, by the American arms, but were 
 ever ready, when occasion tempted, to surprise the incautious 
 traveller, and to cut off the unprotected family. In the border 
 conflicts which grew out of this condition of the territory, Jackson 
 renewed the instructions in the drill and muster which he received 
 in boyhood, and added to them lessons in the warfare of the Indians, 
 both destined to be afterwards employed on a wider theatre and for 
 infinitely greater ends. Intestine feuds also distracted the inhabit- 
 ants; many of their number were rude in manners, and some of 
 them reckless in character ; the collection of debts, by force of 
 law, was a task of difficulty and of danger, and the lawyer who un- 
 dertook it needed activity of body as well as of intellect, firmness 
 of nerve as well as of purpose, vigour of arm as well as of under- 
 standing. 
 
 Jackson, bringing with him an unsullied reputation, was imme- 
 diately employed in cases of this sort ; and he entered on the dis- 
 charge of his professional duties with the same promptitude and 
 energy, so often displayed by him in matters of higher and more 
 extended interest. In these, and other professional efforts of the 
 like nature, he is beset by opposition, and embroiled in collisions, 
 which might have proved fatal to one less honest and courageous ; 
 but his manly bearing and his inflexible pursuit of justice, in despite 
 of every impediment, establish his reputation ; and professional 
 success is the necessary consequence. Another result is, that he 
 becomes universally known as one of the first citizens, in point of 
 character and influence, of the young community, now rapidly in- 
 creasing in numbers, and about to be organized, with the consent 
 and by the cession of North Carolina, as a territory of the United 
 States. This event takes place in 1 790, and Andrew Jackson re- 
 ceives from George Washington, then president of the United 
 States, his first appointment to office — that of attorney of the 
 United States for the new territory. 
 
 In the short space of six years the territorial government is super- 
 seded by the admission into the Union of the state of Tennessee. 
 Jackson is a member of the convention which forms the constitu- 
 tion, and he takes an active part in the preparation of that instru- 
 ment. It contains some peculiar provisions which deserve a mo- 
 ment's notice. The members of the legislature are chosen for two 
 years, and meet only biennially, except when called together on 
 extraordinary occasions. This arrangement is founded on the idea, 
 that while annual meetings of the legislative body are indispensa- 
 ble in countries having a hereditary executive, the like necessity 
 G 
 
B2 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 does not exist where the executive is chosen by, and responsible to, 
 the people ; and that the people themselves are the best conserva- 
 tors of their rights. The bill of rights in this constitution is one of 
 the most liberal and comprehensive adopted by any of our states. 
 It asserts, in the strongest terms, the inherent and uncontrollable 
 sovereignty of the people, and their right to instruct, as well as to 
 petition, their representatives ; it denounces perpetuities and mo- 
 nopolies as contrary to the genius of a free state ; and it forbids the 
 grant of any hereditary emoluments, privileges, or honours. From 
 the subsequent life of Jackson, it is easy to see that he must have 
 assented, with a warm heart, to all these provisions. 
 
 Immediately on the admission of the new state into the Union, 
 Jackson is chosen one of her delegates in the House of Representa- 
 tives; and the next year he is appointed one of her senators in 
 Congress. He serves in this distinguished body, over which 
 Thomas Jefferson was then the presiding officer, until 1799, and 
 thus enjoys opportunities of forming a personal friendship with a 
 statesman and political philosopher, with whose sentiments his own 
 entirely concur, and for whose genius he cherishes the highest ad- 
 miration. In 1799, he retires by voluntary resignation from the 
 honourable post Most unexpectedly to himself, he is immediate!}' 
 appointed a judge of the Supreme Court of his state, a station which 
 he accepts with reluctance, and from which he withdraws at an 
 early day. He does so with the design, which he then supposes 
 he (nay be permitted to accomplish, of spending the residue of his 
 days in the quiet retreat of a country life. Little does he dream 
 of the brilliant destiny that awaits him. In the mean time, as 
 another preparation for that destiny, the field officers of one of the 
 divisions of the Tennessee militia, no strangers to his lofty patriot- 
 ism, or his martial spirit, had chosen him without consultation with, 
 or notice to him, their major-general. This commission he retained 
 until 1814, when he received the like appointment in the army of 
 the United States. 
 
 We are now to contemplate Andrew Jackson in the new arid 
 conspicuous theatre in which he attracted the regards not only 
 of America, but of the world. Rallying to his standard at the 
 first moment when the action of the government enabled him 
 to do so, the gallant spirits of his division, he dedicates their 
 persons and his own to the service of the nation. From No- 
 vember, 1812, to the cessation of hostilities, he is constantly em- 
 ployed in creating and leading the armies, fighting the battles, and 
 vanquishing the enemies of his country. It is not my purpose to 
 enter into the details of his military exploits. Of all and of each 
 it ma}' be said, that in each and in all he acquitted himself as no 
 other man but Andrew Jackson could have done. With his first 
 touch of the marshal's tmnchpon, the hand of one horn to command 
 
butler's eulogy. 63 
 
 at will the energies of his troops, to infuse into them his own dar- 
 ing spirit, and successfully to cope in any and every field with the ^ 
 most skilful and courageous of his enemies, is evidently seen. 
 Throughout his whole military career he exhibits in felicitous com- 
 bination all the great qualities of a great commander — compre- 
 hensiveness and accuracy of view, genius to devise, skill and cour- 
 age to execute, coolness and self-possession in every emergency, 
 perfect command of his resources, sagacity to discover and ability 
 to defeat the plans of his opponent. In his campaign against the 
 Creeks, so formidable by their numbers, their obstinate bravery, 
 and their proficiency in all the arts of savage warfare, he adds to 
 the hardihood, the patience, and the self-denial of a Hannibal — the 
 vigour, the celerity, the success of a Ceesar. When he plants, 
 upon his own responsibility, the American eagle on the forts of 
 Pensacola, statesmen see that the instincts of a heart and will de- 
 voted to the public weal, can anticipate the rules of public law ; 
 and the nation recognise and honour the clearness of his judg- 
 ment not less than the promptitude and energy of his conduct. 
 
 In his command at New Orleans, from his arrival at the be- 
 leaguered city until his departure from it, we seem to follow some 
 heaven-appointed and heaven-assisted warrior of the ancient dis- 
 pensation, rather than a chieftain of modern times. Such super- 
 human activity — such assumption and exercise of power — such 
 chivalrous daring and consummate address in striking the first blow 
 in the unequal conflict — such cautious preparations for the final 
 struggle — such perfect success in its triumphant issue — such fright- 
 ful havoc in the troops of the enemy, and such almost miraculous 
 preservation of his own — who, in these things, does not see the 
 hand of God, the agency of an instrument ordained, prepared, and 
 guided by Himself? I must content myself with the briefest pos- 
 sible reference to the war with the Seminoles, in 1817-18. It the 
 exploits of Jackson in this campaign had constituted his whole title 
 to military renown, they would have been amply sufficient to place 
 him high on the roll of fame. How does it enhance the estimate 
 of his former achievements, when it is considered that the Semi- 
 nole war is scarcely thought of in the comparison ; and that Jack- 
 son is seldom named in connexion with it, except by those who 
 refer to it for the purpose of denouncing him for the execution of 
 Ambrister and Arbuthnot ! Having named this incident, I feel it 
 right to state my entire conviction, that in this, as in every other 
 act of his public life, he proceeded under a deep sense of what he 
 believed to be the injunction of duty ; and duty was ever to him 
 as the voice of heaven. " My God would not have smiled on me" 
 (was his characteristic remark, when speaking of this affair to him 
 who addresses you), " had I punished only the poor, ignorant sav- 
 ages, and spared the white men who set them on." 
 
64 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 The hour has at length come when Jackson believed he ma}' a 
 second time retire to rural occupations, without danger of any 
 further call to engage in the service of the Union. The nation is 
 at peace with all the world ; the Indian tribes have been reduced 
 to submission; peace reigns in all our borders, and tranquillity 
 throughout the land. He resigns his commission in the army ; re- 
 fuses the appointment of minister to Mexico, conferred on him by 
 President Monroe, not only because he desires no office of emolu- 
 ment or honour, but because he will not countenance, by his pre- 
 sence at the court of Iturbide, the substitution of a monarchy in 
 place of a republic, nor the means by which it has been effected. 
 Other reasons concur, to enforce the step he has taken. Incessant 
 toil in the various duties of his command — exposure to the hard- 
 ships of military service in the warm climates of the South, and 
 especially in the swamps and morasses of Florida — have under- 
 mined his constitution ; and retirement seems as needful to the pre- 
 servation of his own life, as it is to the happiness of those who have 
 so long been denied the pleasure of his society. He does not deem 
 it inconsistent with this feeling, to accept the office of smator in 
 Congress, again conferred on him by his beloved Tennessee ; for 
 this honourable and comparatively easy service will still leave him, 
 the greater portion of the year, an inmate of the Hermitage. But 
 his mission is not yet ended. 
 
 " Peace hath her victories, 
 No less renowned than war." 
 
 And many such victories he is yet to win. By spontaneous up- 
 risings of the people, in his own and other states, he is presented 
 to the nation as a candidate for the highest trust. Though not at 
 first invested with this dignity, his three competitors, each long 
 and honourably identified with the civic service of the Union, are 
 left behind him in the race. 
 
 In due course of time another contest ensues. He is raised to 
 the chief magistracy by more than two to one of the electoral 
 votes. In surveying, from this high eminence, the field of duty to 
 which he has been called, he perceives that with many foreign 
 states we have unsettled subjects of dispute, growing out of claims 
 to justice long deferred, for spoliations of our commerce, during 
 that reign of lawless violence which, in the beginning of this 
 century, disgraced and barbarized the maritime wars of Europe. 
 He sees that, unless speedily adjusted, they will expose us to the 
 alternative either of sacrificing our national honour or of vindicat- 
 ing by the sword our unquestionable rights. He resolves that this 
 state of things shall not continue ; that no needless delay, no eva- 
 sive subterfuge shall be allowed; that he will proceed, with all 
 possible despatch, in the prosecution of his duty, " asking nothing 
 
v 
 
 butler's eulogy. 65 
 
 that is not right, and submitting to nothing that is wrong ;" and he 
 believes that if this course be steadily and wisely pursued, peace 
 will be preserved, and justice be obtained. 
 
 The result shows the sagacity of his conclusions. One after 
 another, treaties are made and ratified, by which these subjects of 
 irritation, so grave and so dangerous, are all, at length, happily 
 disposed of. In one case only is there any serious delay ; but this 
 is the most important of them all ; for it is our ancient ally, the 
 beautiful, the brilliant France of our own La Fayette, that neglects 
 the performance of her duty. Jackson does not hesitate or waver 
 in his course. He deals with the greatest and most honoured as 
 he would have dealt with the weakest and most humble : he sees 
 to it that while the respectful courtesies due to so distinguished a 
 delinquent are sedulously observed, no jot or tittle of the national 
 honour is lost or compromised. In the end, justice is secured ; the 
 faith of treaties vindicated ; the peace of empires preserved ; and 
 France herself, on a fuller understanding of his course, does honour, 
 Avith a characteristic chivalry and grace, to the "tete dcfe?-"* — the 
 iron will of the stern old man. 
 
 " His name through Europe rings, 
 
 Filling each mouth with envy or with praise, Lx' 
 
 And all her jealous monarehs with amaze, 
 And rumours loud that daunt remotest kings." 
 
 And by his energy and renown our national character is raised to a 
 height of glory never before attained by the American Republic. 
 
 In the meantime, Jackson has been involved at home, in con- 
 flicts protracted and severe. Fired with the love of democratic 
 liberty, and filled with zeal for the constitution, he pursues systems 
 of policy, and adopts a course of measures which bring on violent 
 collisions with the interests, passions, and prejudices of men in dif- 
 ferent quarters of the Union. In the midst of the outbursts of 
 party, produced by these collisions, he is re-elected by a vote of 
 three to one over all the other candidates, although the state of his 
 nativity, formerly foremost in his support, withholds her approving 
 voice. Opposition to him is followed, on her part, by resistance to 
 the laws; the integrity of the Union is threatened ; and the nation 
 is exposed to the dangers of a civil war. Now it is that Andrew 
 Jackson, superior to the danger and equal to the remedy it requires, 
 by his fidelity, his firmness, and his wisdom, achieves the most 
 splendid and most enduring of his victories; averting from his 
 country the stain and curse of fraternal blood ; and giving to his 
 memorable pledge, "Our Federal Union — it must be preserved," 
 the strength of a fixed resolve, and the majesty of a perpetual 
 truth. While the plaudits which now rise from every quarter of 
 the Union are yet sounding in his ears; when by mere inaction 
 in respect to other sources of political convulsion, he could have 
 6* 
 
6fi MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 secured for the remainder of his official term a larger degree of 
 personal repose and general approbation than was ever enjoyed by 
 any of his predecessors, he is again compelled, as he believes, to a 
 clear and inexorable duty, whose execution he well knows will 
 revive anew the animosity of party, involve in bitter and painful 
 conflict the remnant of his public life, and bring upon himself per- 
 haps the censures of many whom he loves, and with whose good 
 opinions he would not lightly part. 
 
 Inferior minds would have shrunk from this new trial. So did 
 not Jackson. What efforts were made to drive him from his pur- 
 pose — with what inflexible resolution he adhered to his position, 
 and how the people sustained him in this conflict also, is it not 
 written in the history of the times, and fresh in the recollections 
 of all who hear me I In reference to this, as well as to every 
 other debateable portion of his public life, I purposely refrain, lest 
 I should transgress the just bounds of this occasion, from any at- 
 tempt to vindicate their expediency or their rightfulness. Only 
 one claim in his behalf do I now think it needful or becoming to 
 assert ; that if, in any of his official acts he erred, his errors were 
 of the understanding, not of the heart; and that, in them all, he 
 acted from honest, disinterested, and patriotic motives. On this 
 point he thus speaks, in the lofty tone of conscious integrity, in 
 one of his recorded vindications : — 
 
 " In vain do I bear upon my person enduring memorials of that 
 contest in which American liberty was purchased — in vain have I 
 since perilled property, fame, and life, in defence of the rights and 
 privileges so dearly bought, * * * if any serious doubts can 
 be entertained as to the purity of my purposes and motives. * * * 
 In the history of conquerors and usurpers, never, in the fire of 
 youth nor the vigour of manhood, could I find an attraction to lure 
 me from the path of duty, and now I shall scarcely find an induce- 
 ment to commence their career of ambition, when gray hairs and 
 a decaying frame, instead of inviting to toil and battle, call me lo 
 the contemplation of other worlds, where conquerors cease to be 
 honoured, and usurpers expiate their crimes. The only ambition I 
 can feel, is to acquit myself to Him to whom I must soon render 
 an account of my stewardship, to serve my fellow-men, and live 
 respected and honoured in the history of my country. No — the 
 ambition which leads me on, is an anxious desire and a fixed deter- 
 mination to return to the people unimpaired the sacred trust they 
 have confided to my charge, * * * to persuade my country- 
 men, so far as I may, that it is not in a splendid government, sup- 
 ported by powerful monopolies and aristocraticai establishments, that 
 they will find happiness, or their liberties protection; but in a 
 plain system, void of pomp — protecting all, and granting favours 
 to none — dispensing its blessings, like the dews of Heaven, unseen 
 
butler'^ eulogy. 67 
 
 and unfelt, save in the freshness and beauty they contribute to pro- 
 duce. It is such a government that the genius of our people re- 
 quires — such an one only under which our states may remain for 
 ages to come, united, prosperous, and free. If the Almighty Being, 
 who has hitherto sustained and protected me, will but vouchsafe to 
 make my feeble powers instrumental to such a result, I shall anti- 
 cipate, with pleasure, the place to be assigned me in the history of 
 my country, and die contented, with the belief that I have contri- 
 buted, in some small degree, to increase the value and prolong the 
 duration of American liberty." 
 
 Andrew Jackson has now retired to the sequestered shades of 
 private life, with the benedictions of a grateful people and the re- 
 spect and admiration of the world. He enters his loved and peace- 
 ful Hermitage, at the appointed limit of human existence, with an 
 enfeebled frame ; the victim of complicated and incurable mala- 
 dies, which leave him little respite from pain, and no strength or 
 relish for the pleasures of active life. Yet has this been, in many 
 respects, the happiest and not the least useful portion of his mortal 
 career. 
 
 Feeling that he has fulfilled with fidelity and zeal the course of 
 public service to which Providence had called him ; conscious of 
 the singleness and purity of his motives, and happy in the belief 
 that the great mass of his political opponents do him justice in this 
 respect ; thrice happy in the knowledge, that the principles by 
 which he has been guided are warmly cherished by a great majo- 
 rity of the people ; receiving continually, and in a thousand forms, 
 proofs of affection and esteem from all classes of his countrymen; 
 full of faith in thp vitality and perpetuity of our system of go- 
 vernment, state and federal ; anticipating, with delight, the ad- 
 vancing glories of his country, and surrounded by a family he 
 loves, and by each member of which he is held in the profoundest 
 veneration ; the retirement of Andrew Jackson, notwithstanding 
 his bodily infirmities, is all that wisdom or patriotism can desire, 
 and such as few statesmen and heroes in the history of mankind 
 have been permitted to enjoy. For more than eight years he is 
 spared to our affections, and though for the last three of them he 
 seldom quits his dwelling, except to bow himself in the house of 
 God, his mental faculties remain unimpaired ; nor are they idle for 
 a day. His correspondence, whether of friendship, or of private 
 or public business, is kept up with steadiness and activity. Alive 
 to everything that concerns his beloved country, and taking daily 
 note of her affairs, he sounds from his lone watch-tower the voice 
 of counsel or of warning, according to the vision which he sees, 
 and to the message which has been given him. And though at 
 times a dull ear is turned to his prophesyings, yet, in most cases, 
 
68 MONUMENT TO .TACKSON. 
 
 and especially in the latest, his words have been clothed with their 
 ancient power over tin- minds and the actions of his fellows. 
 
 If there be any to whom these utterances seem futile or needless, 
 they will yet allow that each of them breathes the language of the 
 heart, and is instinct with /,eal for the bappiness and glory of Ame- 
 rica. But it is not to the public cause that all his thoughts are 
 given. Weight v and instant as are the duties of the citizen to his 
 country, Andrew Jackson remembers that he owes to his Maker 
 higher and more solemn responsibility. This sentiment had been 
 implanted in his youthful breast by a mother's lessons and a mother's 
 love. It had been nourished by the example of a wife — one of the 
 excellent of the earth ; by providential deliverances and favours ; 
 by the perusal of the Book of God, and by the instructions of the 
 pulpit. Under the circumstances in which he is now placed, 
 these influences acquire new, and, by Divine blessing, decisive 
 force. They lead him to the Garden and the Cross ; he seeks and 
 he obtains the forgiveness of his sins ; he avows before the world 
 the hopes he has received, and publicly enlists in the army of the 
 faithful. Henceforward he addicts himsplf, with a child-like do- 
 cility, to the duties and privileges of the Christian life. He finds 
 in them his chief enjoyment, and they produce in him their ap- 
 propriate effects — peace with God, fortitude in suffering, patience 
 and resignation in the midst of pain, serenity and hope in the pros- 
 pect of his departure. And when at length the final hour has 
 come, how does it illustrate the humility of his character, the 
 warmth of his benevolence, the sincerity, the vigour of his faith! 
 With prayers for his household, his friends, his country ; with the 
 words of instruction and of love to all around him ; with entire 
 reliance on the merits of his Redeemer, he commits, without a 
 murmur or a sigh, his immortal spirit to the God of his salvation, 
 his perishing body to the dust from which it came ! 
 
 Such, fellow-citizens, were the last moments of Andrew Jack- 
 son. How unlike those usually assigned by poetry and romance to 
 their fabled heroes ? And yet, in the sober judgment of enlightened 
 reason, not less sublime and heroic than if passed on the field of 
 battle, and in the chariot of victory. The greatest of all triumphs, 
 is that which is achieved over the last enemy ; and this, through 
 the faith that is in Jesus, Jackson was enabled to achieve. The 
 fires of the last day shall consume the laurel wreaths of earth ; 
 most of them, indeed, will have withered ere it comes ; and all 
 ever worn or won, in the tide of time, would furnish no compensa- 
 tion for the loss of a single soul. But the chaplet awarded to the 
 faithful soldier of the Cross, shall be a crown of glory "that fadeth 
 not away." How poor, in comparison, the death scenes enact<<l 
 by the most illustrious warriors of the heathen world! Jackson 
 was a Christian, and he died the Christian's death. In view of thi;, 
 
EULOGY. 69 
 
 fact, and of its blessed issues, how rich, how unfailing our sources 
 of consolation ! In notes as melodious and sublime as those which 
 wafted to the skies, by the aid of Milton's immortal genius, the de- 
 parting spirit of the Hebrew martyr, the chorus of American sym- 
 pathy sends up from our Jackson's bed of death its psean of mourn- 
 ful exultation — 
 
 " Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail, 
 Or knock the breast; no weakness, no contempt, 
 Dispraise or blame; nothing but well and fair, 
 And what may quiet us in a death so noble." 
 
 The valley of the Mississippi, the theatre of his youthful valour 
 and his meridian renown — the sanctuary of his declining age — 
 folds within her bosom the ashes of her hero. In the centre of 
 that young but vigorous state, whose destinies, once his anxious 
 care, were long the objects of his satisfied regard ; on the sunny 
 banks of the Cumberland, where the strong verdure of the West 
 begins reluctantly to yield to the luxuriant beauty of the South; 
 embosomed in a sacred solitude, stands the tomb of the Hermitage, 
 — henceforth to divide with Mount Vernon the respect, the admi- 
 ration, and the reverence of mankind. The simplicity of his life, 
 the calm dignity of his death, are exemplified by the humility of 
 his grave. You remember how he rejected the imperial honour 
 that was proffered to his bones. " I cannot permit my remains to 
 be the first in these United States to be deposited in a sarcophagus 
 made for an emperor or king. I have prepared an humble deposi- 
 tory for my mortal body beside that wherein lies my beloved wife ; 
 where, without any pomp or parade, I have requested, when my 
 God calls me to sleep with my fathers, to be laid ;. for both of us 
 there to remain until the last trumpet sounds to call the dead to 
 judgment, when we, I hope, shall rise together, clothed with that 
 heavenly body promised to all who believe in our glorious Re- 
 deemer, who died for us that we might live, and by whose atone- 
 ment I hope for a blessed immortality." This was the answer of 
 Christian meekness, of republican simplicity, of American patriot- 
 ism. Catching the strain from the lips of the dying hero, we may 
 echo its lofty inspiration. More than this, we may give it to-day 
 a new and sublimer significance. Sleep sweetly, aged soldier, 
 statesman, sage, in the grave of kindred and affection. It matters 
 little where Ms body is laid, whose memory is enshrined in all our 
 hearts ; the monument of whose fame is the country that he served; 
 thi' inscription of whose greatness are the praises of the world. 
 But if there be any solace in memory ; if any virtue in the con- 
 templation of heroic deeds ; any purity in the lessons of sublime 
 example ; to the sepulchre of Jackson let the pilgrimage of hu- 
 manity be made — in the ardour of a generous enthusiasm, the sym- 
 pathy of a fraternal love, the consolation of a Christian faith. 
 
EULOGY 
 
 DELIVERED AT PORTSMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE, JULY 2, 1845, 
 
 BY THE 
 
 Hon. LEVI WOODBURY. 
 
 My Fellow-Citizens : — This is no ordinary occasion, when a 
 whole nation is in mourning. The solemn toll of the bell — the 
 funeral dirge — the shroud — the crape — and the minute-gun — all, 
 over every hill and valley of our wide republic, bespeak some great 
 public loss as well as public grief. We come together this even- 
 ing to express in language, still stronger, if possible, than these 
 melancholy tokens, our own deep sense of the bereavement the 
 country has sustained in the death of one of the noblest of her 
 children. 
 
 It is no overstrained eulogy to add, that so many testimonials of 
 respect and real love from a whole people would be offered, at this 
 time, to the memory of but a single man on the western continent. 
 That man, the history of all around tells us, was the hero of New 
 Orleans. He is no more. The victor in a hundred battles has at 
 last fallen. The pilot, who weathered the storm in the fiercest 
 hurricanes of political strife, looks no longer to the compass or the 
 clouds to guide us ; and the Christian as well as sage and patriot of 
 the Hermitage — who still prayed for his country, after the power 
 to do aught else had ceased — has gone to his great and glorious re- 
 ward, while we linger a little longer to offer, it is hoped, some 
 deserved tribute to his memory, and try to profit by his bright 
 example. 
 
 How can we do this best, in the few mournful moments now 
 allotted to that object ? 
 
 Most of the incidents in a life so distinguished as that of General 
 Jackson, are too familiar to make a repetition of them either neces- 
 sary or useful. 
 
 We all — from lisping childhood to palsied age — know that he 
 was one of the survivors of those who bled in our glorious Revolu- 
 tion, and that his character was one of that strong cast — run in that 
 
 (70) 
 
Woodbury's eulogy. 71 
 
 iron mould formed amidst its trials and dangers. We have all 
 heard, when not seen, of the hardy habits, and almost heroic pow- 
 ers, which belonged to that great struggle, and which, so strikingly 
 embodied in the majestic form of our patriot chief, lived to bless 
 a later age, and aid our country in other trials of the cabinet as 
 well as the camp. Statuary and painting and history, no less than 
 the school-room, the humble fireside, the village husting, and every 
 anniversary of the independence he helped to win and defend, 
 have all vied in making us acquainted with the principal outlines 
 of his figure, his mind, and those signal victories both in peace and 
 war, that have enrolled him so high among the warriors and states- 
 men of the era he adorned. 
 
 We all know, also, that, retiring from the public stage, covered 
 with the plaudits and honours of a grateful people, he has for years 
 pursued the peaceful employment of a planter, shedding a benign 
 influence by his example on all around him ; and though not 
 mingling in the turmoil of politics, still lending an anxious eye 
 and heart to advance his country's greatness — till the lamp of life 
 at last burnt out in its socket ; and in sight of the grave of her he 
 loved best, his spirit departed to join hers, as he hoped, in a happier 
 and a holier abode. Thus did the patriarch sink to his last rest. 
 
 But, after the close of such a life, all is not over with it, even 
 here. Though the cold clay sleeps as insensible to our praise and 
 grief as the veteran's sword in its scabbard — though 
 
 " He knows not — he heeds not" — and 
 
 " No sound can awake him to glory again" — 
 
 yet such a life is still powerful ; it continues to speak to the world. 
 And a fit, a grateful, and a beneficial inquiry is, what does it speak? 
 What lessons do its thrilling; trials teach ? What were its great 
 characteristics, tendencies, and example ? What do we derive 
 from it of good, and what are the private and public obligations to 
 its memory, both of ourselves and our posterity? 
 
 Whether we look to his early years, or to their meridian splen- 
 dour or their beautiful close, they seem to me equally full of in- 
 struction. Without the wealth or powerful connexions, which 
 even in republics are sometimes passports to fame, he first appeared 
 on the theatre of public action as an orphan. However inauspi- 
 cious this may have seemed for that brilliant destiny which after- 
 wards awaited him, he soon displayed an energy and perseverance 
 in laying the foundations of an education, which are full of en- 
 couragement to the most lowly and unfriended. How much was 
 his condition at that time emblematic of his country's — both sur- 
 rounded by privations and perils — and both, by the exercise of those 
 vigorous efforts which deserve success, soon enabled to emerge, 
 
72 
 
 MONITJTnXT TO JACKSON. 
 
 and, through many adverse gales of fortune, advance to those high 
 honours and greatness which have since crowded their career? 
 
 After a hurried preparation for the bar, he soon becomes launched 
 into the breakers and storms of professional life. 
 
 Only a few years, spent in the agitating scenes of business, were 
 necessary to develope his integrity and genius in such bold relief, as 
 to attract that general confidence which paved the path to so many 
 responsible trusts. 
 
 His companions at that time have mostly gone before him to a 
 better world ; but I have frequently heard the late Judge Anderson 
 describe the early appearance at the bar of the future hero and 
 president. 
 
 Prominent among his characteristics, were the same inflexible 
 fidelity to the interests intrusted to his care, as since — the same 
 watchful preparation and modest courage, which marked him in 
 the discharge of all duties till the close of his eventful career. 
 
 But the teachings of his meridian life were more conspicuous. 
 As the conqueror of the Creeks, the. defender of the Mississippi 
 valley, the chief magistrate of a great people, the sun of his fame 
 ere long lighted the whole horizon. New scenes constantly de- 
 veloped new traits of character ; new trials elevated him still 
 higher in popular favour ; new victories, in the cabinet as well as 
 the field, crowned him with new laurels from Europe no less than 
 America; and, if any man, left among us till the present age, can 
 be said to possess a European reputation as a warrior or executive 
 officer, it is he who, with raw militia, vanquished veterans flushed 
 by foreign triumphs, and who piloted the ship of state safely through 
 political storms, that made the stoutest hearts quail. 
 
 These tests of his maturer years were useful, if not necessary, to 
 fix his character for patriotism above all suspicion. And the la- 
 bours performed in these — often so Herculean — and all the sacri- 
 fices made, and tribulations endured, evinced such devotedness in 
 duty, and were accompanied by such tried honesty of purpose, that 
 many of every party and sect over our wide republic now hasten 
 to bestow grateful commendation for those high qualities, however 
 differing from him while alive on many points of public policy 
 or private belief. How beautifully, in some cases, did the che- 
 quered scenes of his middle age ripen what were only natural 
 impulses in youth, and mature them into settled principles of ac- 
 tion, and impart to them a modified, softened, and moral tone, cal- 
 culated to render them useful guides to future generations, and 
 leave a deep impress behind on our national character and national 
 institutions! 
 
 But, in some respects, still more attractive were the features in 
 the last period of his career. The closing scenes of the drama show 
 (office and pomp voluntarily relinquished) domestic pleasures and 
 
EULOGY. 73 
 
 deeds of humble usefulness sought for ; all the tender charities of 
 life and neighbourly friendship cherished; religion illustrated in 
 his daily walk, as well as professed at the altar; his country still 
 near and dear, and her welfare watched over with parental solici- 
 tude ; acknowledgments and memorials of respect for benefits con- 
 ferred, a daily solace in his retirement ; and troops of friends spared 
 to the end, to soften the pillow of declining health : and all bright- 
 ened still higher in his departing moments, by the richest hopes 
 beyond the grave. 
 
 What a beautiful progress in improvement and usefulness in true 
 glory, from the dawn of life to its close ! What a happy destiny 
 and example ! And how admirably does the grave, thus closed, 
 bury in its bosom most of the enmities and jealousies of a turbid 
 life, and tend to harmonize his countrymen in paying just tributes 
 to his memory, and in feeling a pride in those high qualities which 
 have reflected no less honour on the land of his birth than on him- 
 self! 
 
 But there are other aspects of his character very impressive. 
 
 Viewed in some prominent capacities or pursuits, rather than in 
 the different stages of life, his destiny has been no less interesting, 
 and is more familiar to the minds of most of us. Some have been 
 accustomed to contemplate him as a soldier, others as a statesman, 
 and a few as a man, without regard to station. Though little is 
 usually said of private character in connexion with public benefac- 
 tors, I have no doubt, from a long acquaintance with General Jack- 
 son, that he felt much more solicitude as to his independence, 
 worth, and standing as a man, than for all the honours ever lavished 
 on him by a grateful people. Yet such is the structure of society 
 — such the eclipsing tendency of public life, that he has long been 
 known over most of the globe as a successful soldier, and appre- 
 ciated highly by millions as a statesman, without much inquiry as 
 to those great principles which he had nourished in retirement, and 
 which fitted him so ably for public usefulness. But it was those 
 principles, and the habits formed by those — and not, as many sup- 
 pose, accident or fortune — which afterwards insured to him victo- 
 ries in the field, and wreathed his brow with civic laurels. Hence 
 his example is so much more to be venerated and transmitted to 
 coming generations for emulation and encouragement. Starting in 
 life with a few strong natural endowments, everything beside was, 
 with him, self-made. It was he himself that improved what God 
 had bestowed or placed near him. It was his practical sense that 
 seized on all the opportunities which occurred for instruction, 
 however few and fleeting, and made the most of the agitating cir- 
 cumstances amidst which his lot in life was cast. It was his idea 
 of moral obligation, that made him patiently study his duties, till 
 inspired with confidence in himself; and then be so firm in their 
 7 
 
74< MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 performance, as to inspire confidence in others; and, in short, after 
 being indefatigable to ascertain what was right, to feel no less bound 
 to enforce it, and " dare do all which may become a man," whether 
 for himself, his friends, or his country. A character thus formed, 
 is of course subject to human frailties, and, in some respects, more 
 so than one nurtured in early life amidst superior advantages from 
 education and associates, who had also enjoyed and improved such 
 advantages. I say this, because indiscriminate eulogy is not worth 
 the breath that utters it. But, at the same time, a man, when 
 reared like him, amidst the agitation and perils of a revolution, 
 sooner learns to buffet well the tempests of life, and, like a tree 
 blown upon by violent winds, strikes root deeper, and is better 
 braced to encounter responsibility and danger of every kind, and 
 bis opinions are stronger, as well as adhered to with greater 
 tenacity. 
 
 Another trait in his private character, not unusual in vigorous 
 intellects, though apparently so opposite to the current of their 
 ordinary feelings, was respect and attachment to female worth. 
 This was doubtless increased in him, from early dependence on a 
 widowed mother, and from endearing associations connected with 
 her watchfulness and devotion to the improvement of his youth. 
 This watchfulness is a most salutary restraint, often substituted by 
 Providence in the place of a father's hardier power; and, when it 
 is not always successful in preventing excesses or errors amidst the 
 numerous temptations of early life, it often excites remorseful re- 
 membrances, and wins back to duty an erring child. 
 
 His wife, while dead as well as living, he regarded almost as a 
 guardian angel. Her miniature was worn near his heart in health, 
 and reposed with his Bible by his sick couch. Well do I remem- 
 ber, while walking with him once among the tombs of the distin- 
 guished dead in the congressional burying-ground, whither we had 
 gone to pay the last obsequies to another of their number, he said : 
 " One solemn request I now urge on you : should I die in this city, 
 remove my ashes to Tennessee, and let them sleep beside my be- 
 loved wife." 
 
 Thank God ! his fond wishes on this subject nave oeen realized : 
 and they do sleep together under the shades of the Hermitage, as 
 they hoped to rise together at the resurrection of the just. 
 
 His tenderness of sentiment extended to her relatives, and, being 
 without children to absorb a portion of it, all his friends came in 
 for a larger share. When once satisfied of their worth, he clung 
 to them with an iron grasp ; and it became almost a passion of his 
 life to reward their attachment. If at times he was thus betrayed 
 into kindness unmerited, the disposition on his part Avas always 
 noble — not only seeking to repay obligations with his purse and 
 
Woodbury's eulogy. 75 
 
 pen, but earnest, on any fit emergency, even to lay down his life 
 for his friends. 
 
 In performing that, or any other supposed duty, it would be too 
 feeble to say he was brave. He was the bravest of the brave. 
 Whether in the horrors of Indian warfare, to which he was in 
 some degree inured from childhood, or in conflict with the disci- 
 plined troops of Europe, or in personal jeopardy from the assassin's 
 ball, or in scenes of civil strife, the same dauntless intrepidity marked 
 his course, often accompanied by what is more rare on such occasions 
 — coolness of judgment and great self-possession. 
 
 I stood once by his side when his life was assailed : and scarce a 
 pulse would beat after the attack was perceived, before he rushed 
 on his foe, alike regardless of danger, and mindful of the means 
 best suited to punish the aggressor. 
 
 With whatever correctness he may, at times, have been charged 
 with rashness, under the feverish impulses of youth, it is certain 
 that his judgment seldom forsook the helm in advanced life, and 
 under the highest provocation: in the very tempest of his passion, 
 he was remarkably wary and watchful. And, however ardent, or 
 even vehement, in what he deemed a good cause, his faculties 
 were usually collected, and his bearing firm. Mingled with this 
 true courage, he possessed, at the same moment, rare modesty and 
 sensibility. Singular as the combination may seem, yet it is not 
 new in history. 
 
 When existing, it shows, in a more elevated light, that strong 
 conviction of duty which is able to impel men, even of retired 
 habits and delicate feelings, to overcome them all. and hazard life 
 itself in defence of what is considered right. One illustration 
 occurs to me, which, at the time, astonished some of the less ob- 
 serving, as to the mysterious workings of our common nature. 
 When Congress caused swords to be presented to several officers, 
 who had signally distinguished themselves in the last war with 
 England, some received them with coolness, and replied to the 
 addresses made on the occasion without emotion. But the great 
 captain, who had saved a city from being sacked, and its daughters 
 from pollution, and who had never blenched nor trembled before 
 an enemy, shook like an aspen leaf, though surrounded by friends, 
 and could with difficulty give utterance to his gratitude. We all 
 remember also, that in the heat and bitterness of party strife, re- 
 proaches were sometimes cast on him for a supposed want of proper 
 sympathies for the rest of mankind. But, in truth, few men pos- 
 sessed more humane feelings. In the privations of war, he divided 
 with the famishing soldier his last loaf; the decrepid beggar never 
 left his roof hungry ; his domestics shared his attention in sickness 
 and health, weeping loudest around his bier ; and he was always 
 found a neighbour to the needy, and a succour to the oppressed. 
 
76 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 The elements were all kindly mingled in his breast, and the scenes 
 he most longed for, and enjoyed with the highest relish, were those 
 of quiet and well-ordered industry among attached friends in rural 
 employment, and amidst deeds of humble usefulness and unostenta- 
 tious benevolence. How often, when surrounded by all the splen- 
 did honours of public life, have I heard him sigh for the Hermitage, 
 and plan improvements and enjoyments to be carried out amidst its 
 tranquil scenes ! 
 
 I am aware, likewise, that both friends and foes have bestowed 
 on him another characteristic — of being a man of iron will. When 
 this is meant to imply hardness of heart, nothing could be further 
 from the truth ; since no child, at the sight of suffering, overflowed 
 quicker with the milk of human kindness than the stern-visaged 
 warrior. But when it means that his sense of duty was strong, and 
 stronger even than his feelings, the term may not have been mis- 
 applied. 
 
 His iron will was mere firmness or inflexibility in the cause he 
 deemed right. It was an indomitable resolution to carry out what 
 conscience dictated. Judgment and the fruits of it, opinion and 
 corresponding conduct, it seemed to him, ought to be inseparable. 
 He knew of no compromise or tampering, or half-way measures, 
 with what was wrong. This high moral tone- — the very highest in 
 the annals of reformers and martyrs the world over — though often 
 imputed to him as a fault, was, in fact, the crowning glory of his 
 character, whether as a man, or a warrior, or a politician. So far 
 from its having proved inconsistent with seeking full advice, and 
 weighing contradictory reasons, and adopting measures of concilia- 
 tion, where justifiable and wise, it was generally preceded by the 
 amplest inquiries and the most careful deliberation. But a con- 
 clusion having been once formed in this manner, the whole powers 
 of his mind and heart were flung into its execution with almost 
 resistless energy ; and then, in fortitude to resist opposition, and in 
 courage to brave all difficulties, and inflexible perseverance to carry 
 out measures deemed right, he may well have been called a man 
 of iron — a man of destiny, or the hero of the iron will. Nor did 
 this habit, as some have imagined, make him implacable or unfor- 
 giving. For, though like others of a warm temperament, making 
 good haters, as well as good lovers and friends, he often forgave his 
 bitterest enemies, and reconciled differences by many deemed in- 
 superable. His custom of assuming responsibility in doubtful cases, 
 has been another topic of criticism, but was only a branch of this 
 energetic trait of character. Blessed with clear perceptions, and 
 careful habits of research, he came to more decisive conclusions, 
 and in less time than most other men ; and hence it became his 
 duty, under these stronger convictions, to follow them out, and, 
 with a manly daring in behalf of what seemed to him right, to act 
 
Woodbury's eulogy. 77 
 
 for that right, and act with energy and without fear, whoever else 
 might falter. This, instead of being culpable, seemed at times, 
 amidst fainting and doubting hearts around him, heroic; and if evil 
 was ever connected with it, such a result usually sprung from a 
 defect in forming some opinion, and not in exhibiting the courage 
 and want of hypocrisy to stand by it chivalrously to the last, when 
 not conscious of error. 
 
 His whole walk in private life having been grounded upon prin- 
 ciples and habits like these, it is not strange that, in obedience to 
 his country's summons, entering on t ! .-> great theatre of public 
 action, he should carry with him wha> iud chiefly qualified him 
 for public usefulness. There, to many j - viously not familiar with 
 him, those principles and habits became t > t unfolded ; and as he was 
 there, ere long, "the observed of all ol -- rvers" — there let us fol- 
 low the further developement and application of them during the 
 few moments that remain to dwell on his virtues and glories. 
 
 His first public duty in behalf of his country was as a youthful 
 soldier — unknown to fame — to defend her liberties in the field. 
 His last one was to lay down her highest honours, and withdraw 
 to the shades of private life, with the blessings of millions for his 
 toils and sacrifices. His earliest efforts took a military direction — 
 probably more from the necessities and perils of the times, than 
 from any taste for it, which then inspired him. Continuing after 
 peace to live somewhat exposed in a frontier life to Indian hostili- 
 ties, military habits were formed, and traits of character developed, 
 in feats of arms which, in other conditions of society, might have 
 appeared only in conquering professional difficulties, or a stubborn 
 soil. The qualities of mind to insure success in either may be 
 much the same ; and yet accident or necessity may make one pos- 
 sessed of them merely a successful farmer, and another a military 
 chieftain. But at no period of his life was General Jackson a 
 soldier of fortune, or trained in the regular schools of war. Hence, 
 in the busiest portions of his service in the field, he was still, at 
 heart and in grain, the citizen, the planter, the lawyer, bred in 
 courts rather than camps, fond of agriculture and politics, and 
 never considered a life in arms either as a profession or a choice. 
 Whatever gorgons, then, jealousy or rivalship may ever have con- 
 jured up, as to the danger of his becoming a military despot, and 
 turning his sword, like Csesar, or Cromwell, or Napoleon, against 
 the liberties of his country, there was no foundation in his educa- 
 tion or tastes for fears like these. The instruments which he had 
 been accustomed to employ were also alike unfit to accomplish such 
 perfidy. So far from being disciplined legions, whose trade was 
 war, or mere pretorian bands, to sell the people to the highest 
 bidder, they also were citizen soldiers. They were farmers and 
 mechanics, with their sons, fresh from the plough and the work- 
 7* 
 
78 
 
 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 shop — accustomed to the rifle chiefly as hunttrs, and taught to 
 wield them to defend, not destroy, liberty ; and, as an armed peo- 
 ple, to punish, rather than encourage, usurpation. Another con- 
 sequence, bordering almost on the marvellous, results from these 
 circumstances. Considering his original pursuits to have been in 
 civil life- -considering his want of scientific education in military 
 affairs — considering he never made arms a profession, and that his 
 troops consisted usually of militia, his skill and success as a soldier 
 seem to have been much the more remarkable and more productive 
 of the general admiration he excited. At the Horseshoe Bend, he 
 forced breastworks as intrepidly as Charles the Twelfth or Suwarow. 
 In several other Indian campaigns, he surmounted obstacles, en- 
 dured privations, and fed on acorns with his men, as patiently as 
 Hannibal. 
 
 Afterwards, little as had been his experience with disciplined 
 armies or the science of war, he defended New Orleans with skill 
 beyond the ablest engineers, and in all his campaigns exhibited 
 vigilance equal to his bravery ; and was as tireless as vigilant, and 
 never hesitated at what the public safety seemed to demand, on 
 account of any risk or danger to himself, however great. His 
 private fortune was more than once pledged to raise public supplies, 
 and he faced both imprisonment and fines rather than leave any 
 opening, in the absence of martial law, for an enemy still linger- 
 ing on our shores, to succeed either by perfidy or surprise. 
 
 It was a most grateful solace in his declining years to receive 
 back from the government of his country the penalty then extorted 
 from him. And the more so, as, like a good citizen, he had paid 
 it peacefully in compliance with judicial forms, though surrounded 
 by a victorious army and thousands of munificent and faithful 
 friends. But the danger being over, and the time past for the laws 
 to be silent among arms — leges silent inter arma — instead of cross- 
 ing the Rubicon against his country like Csesar, or instead of driv- 
 ing out, like Cromwell and Napoleon, the members of the halls of 
 legislation at the point of the bayonet, he soothed popular excite- 
 ment, exhorted to obedience, and himself stood forward, foremost, 
 to preserve the reign of order and law. The pencil and the can- 
 vass are yet to do justice to that great scene. If less brilliant than 
 the victories which preceded it, nothing in his whole splendid 
 career transcends it in true grandeur or salutary influence. 
 
 In a hurried allusion to some of his military excellencies, we 
 ought not to overlook the rapidity and suddenness, no less than the 
 boldness of his movements. I have often heard him say that the 
 unexpected attack made on the 23d of December, contributed 
 greatly to the triumph of the glorious Sth of January. 
 
 In the former, as in some of his forced marches on the Indians, 
 he fell among the enemy almost literally as the thunderbolt of 
 
Woodbury's eulogy. 79 
 
 war ; and if a complete panic Avas not the result, there were fear- 
 ful disheartening, confused councils, fatal procrastination, and a 
 foreboding of disaster, that helped much to produce what it 
 dreaded. 
 
 Again : his vigilance, and care, and industry in preparing for 
 action, were unequalled, and did much to command the success 
 which they so richly deserved. He acted as if nothing was done, 
 while anything useful remained undone. He not only directed 
 everything, but, if possible, watched its execution. His physician, 
 when we were once together examining the battle-field near New 
 Orleans, observed that the general, though labouring under disease 
 on the night before the 8th, and a fit subject for the hospital, re- 
 fused medicine, and visited almost every portion of the line in per- 
 son, to insure the most perfect preparation for the coming conflict. 
 Thus, while many supposed that mere animal courage won his 
 victories, or that personal bravery did all to turn the scales, it will 
 be seen that conduct as much as courage — that preparation, fore- 
 sight, care, were, under Providence, his constant reliance ; and 
 that, without these, he never confided in mere impulses or naked 
 force. 
 
 He was also fertile in resources, and his breastworks of cotton- 
 bags will be as durable in history as the rocks of the Alps scaled 
 by the bold Carthaginian. 
 
 But, in all these observations, it will be seen that I dwell more 
 on the capabilities he discovered to become a great military chief- 
 tain, than on acquirements he never claimed, or acts he never 
 aspired to. 
 
 A long training in the art of war — like Wellington, for instance 
 — he had not enjoyed, nor many thousands, like Frederick the 
 Great, seen slaughtered in numerous pitched battles ; nor sieges of 
 walled cities, frequently prosecuted till sacked, like Constantinople, 
 or buried in their ruins, like Tyre. He himself wished to wear no 
 laurels but those he won. 
 
 In wearing those, he wore enough to satisfy the true ambition of 
 any one. He wore, the world over, the renown of defeating Bri- 
 tish veterans with raw militia. He wore, from home, the grati- 
 tude of thousands of frontier settlers, for the cradles of their chil- 
 dren rescued from the scalping-knife. He wore the heartfelt 
 blessings of millions west of the Alleghanies, secured from ruthless 
 foreign invasion by his energy, and skill, and indomitable courage. 
 He wore, in fine, the richest rewards of a whole country saved from 
 disgrace, and a whole country elevated and honoured by his heroism 
 and glory. Who that recalls the vivid scenes of those days gone by, 
 near a third of -a century ago, when millions of aching eyes with 
 aching hearts looked in almost breathless silence for the next advices 
 from New Orleans, but must feel with renovated force, since his de- 
 
80 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 cease, all we then felt at the first joyful tidings of his great victory ? 
 Patriotic age then shed tears of exultation, as when American liber- 
 ties were sealed and secured by the surrender at Yorktown, to the 
 great chieftain of the Revolution. Youth, ardent and impulsive, 
 then cheered his name as a second Washington, a second saviour of 
 their country ; and female thankfulness, under almost every roof, 
 however lowly, invoked blessings on his head, or, like the nuns of 
 St. Ursula, moved in solemn procession, to offer in public a Te 
 Dei/m for both the victory and the victor. 
 
 When, in later years, some have expressed surprise at such a 
 strong popular feeling, as usually attended his progress through the 
 country, and at the almost boundless empire his opinion exercised 
 over the masses, and at the demonstration of mourning over the 
 whole nation, exhibited since his death, showing how strongly and 
 long he lived in the hearts of the people, they can hardly have re- 
 called the stirring scenes of the close of the last war, and the deep, 
 deep impress on the whole country, made by them no less than his 
 subsequent career in political life. The tide became resistless in 
 favour of his pure patriotism, his honesty of purpose, and more 
 than Roman devotedness to the honour and welfare of his country. 
 
 Passing over further allusions to his military character, a few ad- 
 ditional words in relation to that political life, and my imperfect 
 review of his services will be closed. Some, who concede to him 
 almost unmeasured praise as a soldier, have been loth to admit he 
 possessed any great superiority as a statesman. Nor is this extra- 
 ordinary, when the occupations of the camp in a country like this, 
 are, or ought to be, in a great measure, disconnected with party 
 strife, while the politician lives in that strife as one of his most 
 exciting elements. Another reason is, that friends in such strug- 
 gles are apt to be as much too lavish in commendation, as enemies 
 are too stringent and unyielding. 
 
 Rut when, as now, the curtain of life has fallen on one who kept up 
 a thrilling interest in the public mind to the last, and was considered 
 by the great author of the Declaration of Independence to have 
 filled the measure of his country's glory near a third of a century 
 ago — it is time that the prejudices of party should soften. The 
 death of so much greatness and glory, warning us with new force, 
 
 " What shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue," 
 
 should induce human charity to revise any harsh opinions formed 
 under circumstances less auspicious. 
 
 In taking the dimensions of any statesman among us, it is to be 
 remembered, in the outset, that we have no separate education or 
 training for that career of public life. The equality of our means, 
 as well as rights and institutions, tends likewise to forbid much of 
 that signal superiority in a few individuals, which may sometimes 
 
woodjsury's eulogy. 81 
 
 occur elsewhere amidst inherited rank and inherited wealth. But 
 that any man could here start early in a profession, could be ad- 
 vanced to its first honours at the bar, and next, to the bench itself, 
 could ere long represent his district in the halls of Congress, and 
 next, the growing state itself, which knew his worth best — that 
 such a man could finally be promoted to the very highest station in 
 the gift of a great people, and, after one trial, again be elected 
 almost by acclamation, can hardly be reconciled with the idea of 
 his not possessing some of the very best materials which exist here 
 to form a useful statesman. But, in saying this, who of his discreet 
 admirers ever wished to claim for him — what he himself was the 
 last man to tolerate as deserved — any deep researches into the wri- 
 tings of political economists, or that wide range of historical read- 
 ing which sometimes instructs, no less than it adorns. Could his 
 dust speak from the grave to the thousands now engaged in draw- 
 ing the leading traits of his character, his sturdy honesty would 
 say, as Cromwell did to Lely, the artist : " Paint me as I am ; 
 leave not out the scars or the wrinkles." 
 
 Looking, then, to his real worth in political life, and bringing 
 him to the standard which will ever prevail in a government like 
 ours, all must admit that he ranks high, independent of the trap- 
 pings of office, and was in many qualities among the very fore- 
 most. And why should he not have been % What was there in 
 his genius or habits which unfitted him for usefulness in the public 
 councils 1 He had been endowed, by nature, with a strong intel- 
 . lect. Active habits were formed on this early in life. He began 
 his career when all the great principles of government and human 
 rights were the theme of every tongue, and the subject of much 
 thought and study, as well as discussion. He entered the arena, 
 not only as a citizen, ardent in the cause of securing those princi- 
 ples and rights, but ere long as an officer, to expound, and aid in 
 the administration of, the very government he had fought to defend. 
 
 He helped to develope all the great questions then in contro- 
 versy, and establish necessary guards in forming and adopting some 
 of the new constitutions. Rapidly he is advanced, and enters on a 
 more enlarged sphere, to witness and participate in some of the 
 struggles of principle, under the elder Adams, in which were in- 
 volved several of the most difficult questions of power and con- 
 struction that ever arose between a free people and their represent- 
 atives, and between sovereign states and their own confederacy. 
 
 Indeed, his whole life may be considered as spent in a practical 
 school of politics ; the intervals devoted to arms being brief and 
 rare, and often mingled somewhat with the political agitations of 
 the day. Beyond all this experience in such matters, aided by 
 some current reading on the questions involved, he was a man of 
 most observing habits, not skimming the surface, but probing every- 
 
82 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 thing around him to the bottom, and, with an eagle-gaze, looking 
 quite through the deeds of men. He was also a patient listener 
 till his opinions were formed. Counsel was invited from all proper 
 quarters ; and, instead of acting in difficulties headlong, or without 
 reflection, he gave many hours to retired thought, when the crisis 
 would permit, and was sagacious in detecting fallacies, shrewd in 
 respect to consequences, and familiar with the bearing of most 
 measures on the real affairs of life. Added to this, he was a most 
 thorough and constant reader of our great political bible — the con- 
 stitution of the Union. It was his faithful companion by night 
 and by day. 
 
 But, surpassing many of these excellencies for usefulness in the 
 chair of state, he possessed, beyond most other men that ever 
 graced high stations, decision of character. In the multitude of 
 doubts and questions which must be adjudged in such a position, 
 and the difficult selection of agents, obliged to be made to execute 
 the laws, vacillation and indecision are often fatal. Besides this 
 controlling quality, his long intercourse with men in active life had 
 enabled him to discriminate and judge exceedingly well of charac- 
 ter; and though at times misled by too great confidence in his 
 friends, he never failed to correct mistakes when discovered, how- 
 ever painful to his sensibilities, and however it might rupture the 
 attachments cherished for many years. Indeed, in the chair of 
 state, under the solemnities of his official oath, and the instructions 
 of the people and the states, through the constitution, he felt bound 
 to let the public interests ride over every other consideration. He 
 carried also with him, into that high post, the same sleepless vigi- 
 lance he had practised in the camp — the same stirring assiduity in 
 preparation in every emergency. 
 
 In addition to this, he had an abhorrence of all fraud and hypo- 
 crisy. It seemed in him instinctive and unconquerable. All was 
 manly, aboveboard, straightforward, as well in his negotiations 
 abroad as in the domestic dissensions he encountered at home , and 
 this disposition, cultivated and practised long in private life, w r as 
 found to be no less honourable to himself and his country, through 
 his long public career. This it was that won for him so much re- 
 spect and such remarkable success in his foreign intercourse — aided, 
 to be sure, b}' a knowledge of his high decision of character and 
 great fearlessness in the discharge of every duty. The indemnities 
 he thus obtained — under a resolution neither to take nor do wrong 
 — not only poured many millions of wealth into the country, of 
 which it had long been pillaged, but strengthened the government, 
 and inspired forbearance abroad in future. The most signal instance 
 of the force of these qualities at home, and the devotedness of all of 
 them to the welfare of his country, was that great occasion when all 
 his energies were summoned to execute the laws, under anticipated 
 
Woodbury's eulogy. 83 
 
 resistance, even against his native state and the most devoted friends 
 of his maturer life. But he no more hesitated in that crisis to tread 
 what seemed to him the path of duty, than did the Roman Brutus 
 in respect to his own son. 
 
 The country became more and more confiding, under such trials, 
 in his high moral sense of duty, no less than his patriotism and 
 courage ; and the success with which he encountered and defeated 
 difficulties in the cabinet, scarcely less than what he had exhibited 
 in the field, gave one of the best assurances that he possessed, in an 
 eminent degree, some of the highest qualities of a statesman. His 
 labours and triumphs in civil contests seemed almost equal, in ar- 
 duousness and number, to some we read of in classical mythology. 
 But, instead of being dismayed by their thickening force, he ga- 
 thered new strength and confidence from the people at large, under 
 every struggle. But the people no more strongly placed their trust 
 in him than he in them. And it was often a maxim on his lips, 
 no less than a guide to his administration, that, under our system 
 of government, no abiding trust could be placed except in the peo- 
 ple. If they had not virtue and intelligence and firmness enough 
 to meet any emergency, nothing was safe ; but if they, being the 
 source of all political power, justified and stood by him, all was 
 safe ; and, when thus supported, he carried through vetoes tri- 
 umphantly, against the interests and opinions of many friends, no 
 less than foes : he sustained force-bills against the voices of states 
 most devoted to his election; he strangled formidable coalitions, 
 and foiled, or crushed, with unsurpassed firmness, the worst politi- 
 cal panics and the most monopolizing combinations. 
 
 In all these struggles of civil life, a much higher species of 
 courage is necessary than on the battle-field, as no trumpet, drum, 
 or cannon stirs the blood, no standard floats in the breeze to ani- 
 mate the drooping spirit ; but it is a moral firmness, a martyr's 
 devotion to duty, which must usually sustain, encourage, and tri- 
 umph. Besides that, he had another ally in every crisis. It seemed 
 almost peculiar to his physical as well as intellectual organization, 
 that excitement became one of its elements, and exertion often 
 appeared to invigorate rather than weary. 
 
 A mind like his frequently serves to wear out the body, or, like 
 a canker, to eat into the heart, and cause premature decay. But 
 with him it seemed a necessary stimulant to preserve the body, to 
 rouse its enfeebled or fatigued forces, and keep up action enough to 
 continue life. He hardly appeared even to desire any more than 
 need relaxation. Though not insensible to the calls and charms of 
 
 O # . i 
 
 social intercourse, he could scarcely be said to indulge in any plea- 
 sures. And it is a remarkable fact that, while on his northern tour, 
 in the summer of 1833, when festivities, and joy, and triumphal pro- 
 cessions, waited on his progress over half the Union, he spent many 
 
84- MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 laborious hours, stolen from company, and sleep, and sickness, in 
 some of the most complex and difficult business that ever engrossed 
 his public attention. It will readily be seen that no station, near 
 such a man, was a sinecure. He justly held that a public servant 
 owed all his time, as well as energies, to the public. He tolerated, 
 as to this, no plausible excuses or compromises, or metaphysical dis- 
 tinctions. While anything useful remained to be done, his motto 
 was — onward — onward — work — work — work. 
 
 Though it was no holiday affair to fill office as he filled it, 
 whether looking to himself or those around him — though requiring, 
 as well as practising, all the watchfulness of an Indian ambuscade, 
 all the vigour, at times, of a forced march to surprise an enemy, all 
 the zeal of a missionary of the Cross, yet his active temperament or 
 military training, apparently so inconvenient to others, was mixed 
 up with a courtesy of manner and kindly consideration of what was 
 due to real infirmity ; so that in nothing was he more striking than 
 in all the feelings of a gentleman. He had been formed in that 
 Revolutionary school of politics which added the politeness of the 
 French to the solidity of the English, or the manner of the La 
 Fayettes and Rochambeaus to the strength and intelligence of the 
 Burgoynes and Cornvvallises. He exacted nothing which he did 
 not reciprocate ; he respected in others all that he asked for him- 
 self; and every candid observer soon felt that, however severe his 
 course may at times have seemed at first, yet, in the end, he carried 
 out only that Chesterfieldian as well as Christian injunction, to do 
 to others (is you would be done by. 
 
 Such was his ease in general society, and so delicate his atten- 
 tions to female excellence, that many, who never met him else- 
 where, concluded at once he was more of a courtier, or man of the 
 world, than suited for the conflicts of camps, and parties, and af- 
 fairs of state. But nothing was farther from truth. The moment 
 over, that had been demanded by social usages or the forms of 
 fashion, his whole soul was in his business; and nothing personal 
 or amusing could ever tempt him into the slightest neglect or 
 abandonment of public duty. Never was he bigoted or exclusive 
 in anything. He was public-spirited in all ; nor did any Vandal 
 spirit, however imputed, ever mark his opinions or deeds, even in 
 the fiercest ravages of war or the bitterest excitements of politics; 
 and however the great exigencies of public life may have forced 
 him at times into action and responsibility when others doubted or 
 halted, all his risks were for his country ; all the dangers braved 
 were intended to protect the people and the public safety. 
 
 That he should have been infallible in all this, none pretend ; 
 but that he meant well, and, in the main, did well, and as a whole 
 performed noble service to his country, none can deny. If to err 
 is human, then, if the light of the sun itself be not without some 
 
Woodbury's eulogy. 85 
 
 shades intermingled — can we, taking him all in all, be otherwise 
 than proud of his rank as a man, a soldier, and a statesman? 
 Whether on the Thames or the Ganges — under the tent of the 
 Arab or in marble palaces, it is a distinction to be known as one of 
 his countrymen. Compared with the renowned of other ages and 
 other continents, all America may justly boast of him as a produc- 
 tion creditable to the New World. Humanity itself becomes digni- 
 fied, when man lives up to the height of his powers and his destiny. 
 Though some have regarded him as only a meteor in our horizon, 
 yet so far from that, he will live as a fixed star in history — one of 
 the master minds of the age, carefully formed and practical in his 
 efforts, and worthy the pages of future Plutarchs for many genera- 
 tions to come. The justice of this conclusion will strike us more 
 forcibly, if we notice the contrast between his course and that of 
 many inscribed high on the rolls of past ages ; his whole life de- 
 voted to defend the liberties of his country, rather than like others 
 to break them down ; the passion of his heart to uphold rather than 
 to overturn its constitution and laws, friends and power risked to 
 preserve unimpaired the sacred ties of its union, the sceptre of 
 state relinquished, and, like the humblest citizen, retiring to his 
 farm, instead of striving, like many, to usurp authority, or prolong 
 the pomp and pageantry of office. 
 
 In fine, he neither enriched himself by plunder or peculation, 
 nor engrossed office for his family, nor waged a moment's war for 
 ambition or conquest; nor exercised a single new power, nor be- 
 trayed an old one, nor filled station an hour but from the will of 
 the people, or in conformity to the charter of their liberties. What 
 to such a man, in sterling worth, are the Cresars and Napoleons and 
 Santa Anas of history? and what is the value of their bad example, 
 contrasted with the fidelity and patriotism of his, to guide the 
 youth of all coming ages in the cause of public liberty and public 
 virtue 1 How admirably were his qualities suited to render him a 
 fit statesman for the stormy and responsible dangers of a republic! 
 and how the instinct of our people detected, and appreciated, and 
 honoured such qualities while living, and lament them when de- 
 parted ! Who can say that such a man was not raised up by a kind 
 Providence for our national security in peace, no less than war ? 
 And while a nation bedews with tears the green turf where lie 
 sleeps, it is not sorrow without hope ; for who can doubt that the 
 same guardian power which has shielded us heretofore through the 
 Washingtons and Jacksons, the Jeffersons and Franklins, that crowd 
 the bright galaxy of our history, will raise up other worthies, and 
 train them suitably to meet every peril which may menace us ? 
 
 Whatever may be the combinations of civil thrones abroad, or 
 whatever the jealousy and injustice sometimes excited at home 
 against those who are true to the cause of popular rights and free 
 8 
 
8G MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 governments, as opposed to despotisms and monopolies and arbitrary 
 dominion of all kinds— the past is full of hope for the future, and 
 inspires the same confidence concerning the salvation of the re- 
 public, as was felt by him about his own in the shades of the Her- 
 mitage, when h s purified spirit bade his countrymen its last fare- 
 well? When, in that solemn hour, all his trophies were laid lowly 
 at the foot of the Cross, how joyful, even more than solemn, was 
 such a close to the great drama of his existence on earth ! Hal- 
 lowed by what lofty consolations ! Animated by what near re- 
 unions to all he had loved most in life ! Sustained by what trusts 
 on high! Grateful to what millions, for what confidence and 
 honours below ! Charmed by what prospects of enlarged and en- 
 larging greatness to the country that gave him birth, and glory, 
 and rest to his ashes ! His last words were said to have been — 
 
 "I have finished my destiny on the earth; and it is better that 
 this worn-out frame should go to rest, and my spirit take up its 
 abode with my Redeemer." 
 
 If a o-ood close of life be its crowning excellence, his was one 
 of the most fortunate that has fallen to the lot of humanity. Long 
 will the memory of such a man be cherished by an admiring world ; 
 and long, very long, may it live in the hearts of his countrymen, 
 and shed a genial influence over their character and institutions. 
 Age and youth, in grateful crowds, till the evening of time, will 
 gather around his tomb, recount his patriotism and glories with 
 tearful eyes, venerate his virtues, and grow wiser and better by the 
 salutary lessons his life inculcates. 
 
EULOGY 
 
 DELIVERED AT BALTIMORE, JULY 1, 1845, 
 
 BY 
 
 Gen. BEN J. C. HOWARD. 
 
 Fellow-Citizens : — Penetrated with a most profound sense of 
 the unusual importance of the present occasion, of the solemnity 
 and universality of the public feeling which has given birth to this 
 vast and imposing assemblage, and impressed with a deep convic- 
 tion of the magnitude of the services rendered to his country by the 
 illustrious man whose death we deplore, and whose memor}^ Ave 
 honour, I proceed to address you. In no instance in my life have 
 I ever felt such innate shrinking from the performance of a public 
 duty. When a nation mourns, the emblems of its grief address 
 themselves to the imagination of the beholder, and the task of com- 
 bining and concentrating in words the vivid emotions of an intelli- 
 gent multitude maybe considered hopeless. Everything around us 
 is shrouded in the habiliments of woe. The strains of melancholy 
 music fall upon the ear in plaintive sounds, and around me are the 
 men most conspicuous for excellence in virtue, for honourable sta- 
 tions in society, for talents and character, and all which can dignify 
 human nature. Surrounded by all these incentives to stimulate 
 imagination, how poor is language when it attempts to catch, and 
 embody, and express the feelings which are thus powerfully roused 
 into action ! If the speaker were to be actuated by a cold selfish- 
 ness, he would abandon his duty in despair. But the occasion calls 
 forth the kind and gentle feelings of our nature, and he may well 
 throw himself upon the forbearance of an audience predisposed, 
 from all these circumstances, to the indulgence of the generous, 
 instead of the stern, emotions of the heart. 
 
 In assembling, as we have done, to place upon the records of our 
 history, this solemn tribute of respect to the memory of departed 
 worth, we find ourselves in an attitude as novel as it is interesting. 
 Here are men of all political parties, gathering under the flag of 
 
 (87) 
 
88 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 the stars and stripes, to lay aside for a short time all differences of 
 opinion, and in the name of their common country, for the benefit 
 of those who now live, and those who are to come after us, to 
 pay a token of respect to the memory of the patriot and soldier, 
 Andrew Jackson. It is delightful to witness this union. It is re- 
 freshing to the contemplative mind, to look at one of these epochs 
 when American citizens can meet around the holy altar of their 
 country, laying aside every feeling which could detract from the 
 solemnity of the occasion. We are around the bier of one of the 
 dead Fathers of the Republic. Though his mortal remains are not 
 actually present, the symbol is here. The funeral car, and the 
 pall-bearers, and all the insignia of mourning, are present to the 
 senses ; and the feelings which press upon me as I contemplate 
 these indications of respectful grief, induce me to exclaim, as it 
 was once said upon an occasion infinitely more solemn even than 
 this: "Put off the shoes from thy feet, for the ground on which 
 thou standest is holy." Yes — it is holy ground. . Nothing should 
 be felt or said that does not partake of a feeling of awe. Nothing 
 should be felt or said which is not calculated to make us purer pa- 
 triots and better men. We are told that in the early history of 
 Europe, in the eleventh century, during the seasons of Advent and 
 Lent, there was a cessation of all private warfare from the evening 
 of Thursday to the evening of Sunday in every week. No matter 
 how imbittered were the feuds which prevailed — no matter with 
 what fierceness private injuries were sought to be redressed at the 
 point of the spear and the sword, the warriors of chivalry lowered 
 their pennons when the time came for the " truce of God" to pre- 
 vail. It was a beautiful institution, established by religious autho- 
 rity to mitigate the ferocity of the age. So it is with us on this 
 day. Under the dispensation of Providence, whose infinite wisdom 
 has suffered no unmitigated evil to afflict those creatures who are 
 the constant recipients of his bounty, even the calamity which the 
 nation mourns, is not without some compensatory good. We are 
 under the "truce of God!" All the banners of political warfare 
 are laid aside ; all differences of opinion are merged in the senti- 
 ment which fills the bosoms of us all, that he whose life was de- 
 voted to a nation's service is entitled to a nation's gratitude. It is 
 the perfume of the gathered flower. 
 
 At the foot of this stately column, surmounted by the statue of 
 the only human being whose birthday continued to be celebrated 
 after his death, where a pure and classical taste has written an ap- 
 propriate eulogium by the simple inscription — 
 
 "TO WASHINGTON," 
 
 we can properly assemble to pay respect to the memory of another 
 of those men who belonged to what has been beautifully termed 
 
Howard's eulogy. 89 
 
 the "heroic age," and offer our united testimony of respect to 
 Jackson. 
 
 " To George Washington" is upon the column in letters as dura- 
 ble as the marble itself. " To Jackson" is upon the hearts of all 
 around in letters equally as lasting, because they are upon the page 
 of history, to remain until the marble shall crumble into dust. The 
 swords of these two men were drawn to oppose the same enemy, 
 and may God, in his protecting Providence, grant that whenever 
 the drum and trumpet shall again summon to arms the now sleeping 
 chivalry of the land, there may be found a third worthy to be asso- 
 ciated with Washington and Jackson. 
 
 When I look around me and reflect where it is that I am stand- 
 ing, that I am within a few yards of the spot where the gifted 
 author of the " Star-Spangled Banner" drew his last breath, I am 
 tempted to invoke his genius, and say in his language, as my eye 
 rests upon this monument and this celebration, 
 
 Thus be it ever when freemen shall stand 
 
 Between their loved homes and the war's desolation." 
 
 The response in every heart will doubtless be, such ever shall be 
 the rewards which a generous people will extend to their patriotic 
 defenders. 
 
 The early days of Jackson were passed amongst the scenes of 
 the Revolution, where the mature powers of Washington were in- 
 cessantly employed; as if, in the highest ranks of patriotism, it 
 was necessary for the youthful aspirant after fame to inhale a pure 
 spirit from his living predecessor : as if nature, fearful lest the race 
 of such men might perish, had directed them to exist in continued 
 and unbroken succession. It seems as if the nation had stood ready, 
 like a sponsor at the font, with one of its own children, offering 
 him as a noviciate, to be trained up in the school of virtue, whilst 
 the ripe and finished patriot was yet in the meridian of his use- 
 fulness. 
 
 In the camps of the South the youthful Jackson learned that his 
 country was to be served through peril and privation of every kind. 
 It is not surprising that our nation has turned to the men of the 
 Revolution with trust and confidence, for it was solely the impulse 
 of a lofty spirit which carried them to the field. They gave every- 
 thing to their country ; their country had nothing to give them 
 except its approbation, for it was "steeped in poverty to the very 
 lips." The man who has struggled through difficulty, and attained 
 a station in society, where power, and wealth, and patronage have 
 become his own, instinctively turns to the friends of his boyhood 
 for an attachment which he knows to be disinterested ; and the 
 nation, with the same instinctive feeling, looks back to the days of 
 its feebleness and poverty, under an intuitive conviction that the 
 8* 
 
90 
 
 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 active friends of the penniless boy are sincere in their attachment 
 to the opulent man. But the Revolutionary stock is nearly ex- 
 hausted. Only a few hoary-headed lingering remnants are found, 
 who, we hope, are awaiting their final summons with the same 
 philosophic and religious composure which shed its mild radiance 
 over the last hours of Andrew Jackson. 
 
 We must no more expect to place the doctrines of the nation in 
 the hands of the same men who rocked it in its cradle. Their 
 hands are impotent for every purpose, except that of being raised 
 to Heaven to invoke blessings upon their country. A place of 
 honour has been assigned in this procession to the officers and sol- 
 diers of the Revolution ; but how few have availed themselves of 
 it ! According to the figure of the poet, we see them 
 
 "Walk thoughtful on the solemn, silent shore, 
 Of that vast ocean they must sail so soon." 
 
 And one by one they go forth in their solitary skiff" and disappear 
 from our sight. But their examples, their precepts, their charac- 
 ters remain ; and although these are becoming more dim as we 
 recede from them in the progress of time, yet they are also becom- 
 ing more and more hallowed in the affections of the people. There 
 was a hardihood in the characters of the men of the Revolution, 
 which we do not see exhibited in those of our day ; but it is only 
 because circumstances have not drawn it forth. When Andrew 
 Jackson^was a youth, he saw his country ravaged by a powerful 
 foe, against whom the intrepid Greene, with his inferior force, was 
 scarcely able to stand. The condition of the southern states was 
 such as to task to the uttermost the strength of the nerve of every 
 one of the inhabitants. There was the daily exhibition of courage 
 in its rarest form ; patient, enduring courage, compelled to bide its 
 time for a more active display, and wait, amidst hardships and suf- 
 ferings, until an approach to an equality in numbers could justify 
 an appeal to combat. Surrounded by such men, and living at such 
 a period, the spirit of the youth acquired that unbending firmness 
 which characterized him in all his after life, in whatever situation 
 he was placed. It is not my purpose to utter a biography of Ge- 
 neral Jackson. There are few or none present who are not familiar 
 with the leading events of his life — and at all events this is not a 
 fit opportunity for it. All that I can do will be to touch incident* 
 ally upon those parts of it which contributed to form or strengthen 
 a character of rare excellence. In the fountains of the Revolution 
 he bathed his youthful spirit, and came into active life invigorated 
 by their healthy influence; and in the wilds of the West he ac- 
 quired that practical turn of thought which led him to look to 
 results and to what was to be done, rather than to matters of spe- 
 culation. 
 
Howard's eulogy. 91 
 
 The settlers of the western country were compelled to call into 
 activity as much thought for the purpose of building up their poli- 
 tical institutions, as physical energy to subdue the wilderness. 
 When the savages were conquered and the woods felled, or even 
 before this was done, they had to construct a government from the 
 foundation stone. It is interesting to contrast the result of their 
 labours with the constitutions of the Atlantic states, formed amidst 
 the din of arms, with less advantages of study and experience, and 
 to see how, in the interval, men's minds had been employed in 
 watching the working of political machines. Throughout the 
 entire western country, there is evidenced a familiarity with ab- 
 stract principles, which our people, when they framed our consti- 
 tution, either did not possess or could not carry out. For example, 
 in our own Maryland, prejudices were so little controlled by the 
 natural principles of justice, and were so enduring in the public 
 mind, that it was not until a comparatively recent day that the 
 Hebrew was allowed to mingle with his fellow-citizens upon terms 
 of perfect equality. The union of church and state had been so 
 perfect for half a century before the Revolution, that the builders 
 were afraid entirely to remove that pillar of the old edifice, but 
 contented themselves with throwing open the avenue of office to 
 all Christians of every denomination. But in the West there were 
 no old pillars to be removed. Their statesmen imbibed together 
 the healthy air of the forest, and the pure principles of liberty, as 
 they trod the pathless woods. In their own free hearts they found 
 the latent feeling which earned them straight forward in the path 
 of building up their sacred institutions. Here it is that we find in 
 the character of Andrew Jackson, as well as in many other states- 
 men of the West, a vigour and boldness of thought inclining him 
 habitually to look to the fundamental principles of the social com- 
 pact. It is eminently true of all Americans, that they deal practi- 
 cally and familiarly with abstract principles which European phi- 
 losophers can do little more than meditate upon in the recesses of 
 their closets. But it is, perhaps, more eminently true of the western 
 statesmen who have seen society grow up from the green, traced it 
 through all its gradations, until the healthy plant has shot forth 
 both luxuriant flowers and fruits. The hut in the primitive forest 
 was the seed ; a republican government the fruit. These men are 
 accustomed to aim at what is practically useful. In the character 
 of Jackson, this was a leading trait. No artificial refinements ob- 
 scured his clear perception of what was proper to be done, but his 
 natural sagacity carried him at once to those conclusions which 
 other men work out by a long process of reasoning. His military 
 career strikingly illustrates this. When the British troops landed 
 near New Orleans, it is probable that the nicest calculations of stra- 
 tegy would have dictated an attack upon them on the 23d of De- 
 
92 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 cember ; but a less firm heart would have hesitated before making 
 a night attack upon disciplined troops, with some regulars, but the 
 greatest part militia. No one can read the history of that period 
 without being convinced that the safety of New Orleans was 
 owing to this masterly and decisive movement. It taught cau- 
 tion to his enemy, and gained time for himself. But it required 
 the highest order of genius to resolve upon it, and the sternest 
 courage to execute it.. And yet so little sensible was he of the 
 hazard of defeat in this really perilous but necessary adventure, 
 that he coolly wrote to the secretary, three days afterwards, 
 "As the safety of the city will depend upon this army, it must 
 not be incautiously exposed." The battle of the 8th of January 
 must for ever stand in military history as a wonder. Well do 
 I remember the universal impression which prevailed in our city, 
 when the tidings of it first reached us, that some strange error had 
 crept into the account, with respect to the disparity of loss on both 
 sides. And even now it is a subject of astonishment. They were 
 the same British troops who had stormed Badajos and St. Sebas- 
 tian's, making their way over fosses filled with the dead, over piles 
 of loose stones, through what they called a practicable breach of 
 the rampart, and in the face of a disciplined foe. And yet a few 
 cotton bales and a slight ditch was found to be an impassable bar- 
 rier. What was the cause? It was the cool head, the steady arm, 
 the practised aim of the marksmen of the woods, whose aim was 
 unerring, and who had caught some of the indomitable spirit of 
 their gallant leader. You, my fellow-citizens, those of you who 
 were old enough to participate in the events of the da} r , felt an 
 intense and peculiar interest in this brilliant achievement. 
 
 At least four of the regiments on the side of the invaders were 
 the same which you had yourselves met a few short months be- 
 fore, and who, retiring from your city in a sullen spirit of ven- 
 geance, had been recruiting their strength for a more desperate 
 assault upon what they thought to be a more defenceless place. It 
 was a singular coincidence that, with all these unusual causes of 
 deep anxiety for the fate of New Orleans, together with the vivid 
 recollection of the existing scenes exhibited in an invaded city, it 
 was at Baltimore that the news of peace coming from the north, and 
 of victory coming from the south, met each other ; and the splendid 
 illumination of the 15th of February was a practical demonstration 
 that the war had closed in a blaze of glory. But who can speak 
 of the 8th of January, 1815, with any hope of suiting his language 
 to the swelling theme. It has long since taken its place among 
 the very few in the American calendar worthy of a national cele- 
 bration. We have but four : the 22d of February, the 4th of July, 
 the 12th of September, and the 8th of January. They are now 
 consecrated by the universal voice, and he who can add a fifth to the 
 
Howard's eulogy. 93 
 
 illustrious roll will stamp his own name also for ever upon the 
 record of his country's fame. 
 
 The repulse of the British from New Orleans has always, in my 
 view, assumed additional importance from an opinion which I have 
 entertained and do not see why I should forbear to express. It is, 
 that in case of conquest the British government did not intend to 
 surrender the city under the first article of the treaty of Ghent, 
 providing for a mutual restoration of captured places ; but that the 
 ready pliancy of the government of Spain would have easily been 
 persuaded to interpose a protest, and set up a claim founded upon a 
 compulsory cession of Louisiana to France. The reasons for this 
 opinion it is not necessary to state. But it may not be amiss to 
 refer to an extraordinary passage in the letter of the British to the 
 American Commissioners at Ghent, under date of October 8th, 
 1814, in which they say, "His Catholic Majesty was not a party 
 to the treaty by which the cession (of Louisiana) was made, and if 
 any sanction has been subsequently obtained from him, it must 
 have been, like other contemporaneous acts of that monarch, in- 
 voluntary, and as such cannot alter the character of the transaction. 
 The Marquis of Yrujo, the Minister of His Catholic Majesty at 
 Washington, in a letter addressed to the President of the United 
 States, formally protested against the cession and the right of , 
 France to make it." 
 
 He who thinks that this declaration, so strangely introduced into 
 the correspondence, was without a specific object, entertains a dif- 
 ferent opinion from myself. 
 
 If my conjecture is right, from what a multitude of embarrass- 
 ments did the victory of Jackson free our government? We 
 should have had a repetition of the delay in surrendering posts 
 which had nearly plunged us into a war with England in the 
 second term of Washington, and the peace would have been short- 
 lived. 
 
 But it is useless to pursue this subject further. 
 
 Of the subsequent life of General Jackson and his connexion with 
 the civil affairs of the country, it is difficult for me to speak in this 
 presence. Not one word will I voluntarily utter which may jar 
 upon the feelings of a single man in this assembly. Conceding to 
 that numerous and respectable part of the nation who opposed the 
 measures of his administration, an anxious desire to promote the 
 welfare of our common country, I feel that I have a right to claim 
 equal honesty of purpose for those who sustained those measures. 
 That part of our history has yet to be written. We are too near 
 the stirring and exciting scenes through which we have passed to 
 divest ourselves of the pride of opinion which belongs to us all, and 
 without laying this aside, an impartial judgment cannot be formed. 
 Turning our eyes away, therefore, from every point of controversy, 
 
94 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 let us look upon those subjects where there is no difference of sen- 
 timent. There are two portions of the administration of President 
 Jackson into which he threw all the vigour of his general charac- 
 ter, to the honour and good of his country. I refer to his attach- 
 ment to the union of these states, and the preservation of a lofty 
 dignity in his intercourse with foreign nations. Upon these two 
 points he has left the traces of his footsteps in as indelible impres- 
 sions as those where geologists discover the marks of living animals 
 even in antediluvian rocks. No future president can disregard 
 these landmarks without losing the respect of the American nation 
 just in proportion as he swerves from the visible line ; and I will 
 venture to say, that since the origin of the maxim inculcated by 
 Washington, "In peace, prepare for war," a maxim too little re- 
 garded, there has been no sentiment uttered so congenial to the 
 spirit and temper of our people as that " whilst we should ask 
 nothing but what is right, so we should submit to nothing that is 
 wrong." It has already passed into a popular saying, and is en- 
 graven in letters of fire upon the hearts of the people. Let our 
 rulers take care to ask nothing that is not clearly right ; and if 
 they fail in obtaining this, the people, with an unanimous voice, 
 will bear them out when they refuse to submit to what is wrong. 
 Popular governments are essentially pacific, and Ave may trace the 
 continuance of peace for the last thirty years in Europe, more to 
 the influence which popular rights and principles have acquired, 
 than to any other cause. The age has long since passed away 
 when nations could be plunged into the horrors of war in order 
 that a king might aggrandize his family by placing his grandson on 
 a foreign throne. . But just in proportion as a popular government 
 is disinclined to war, is it powerful when its resources are brought 
 out. Let me make a passing remark upon this subject. If it 
 should be our destiny to be again involved in war, as I suppose it 
 must be sooner or later, let your confidence be bestowed upon those 
 legislators only who will effectually call forth the dormant ener- 
 gies of the nation. Two examples are before us of the dangers 
 which flow from insufficient preparation. 
 
 Washington and Jackson had to exert all their mighty powers to 
 avoid being overwhelmed ; and if you ■will not believe these two, 
 you would not believe, though one rose from the dead. 
 
 The last few years of the life of Jackson were marked by the 
 only useful example which a man can show forth after the work 
 of life is done. Always intense in his feelings, he threw into his 
 devotional character the same fervour which had marked his 
 chequered career, and awaited his final summons with Christian 
 hope and resignation. As the twilight closed in around him, the 
 evening star of his religious faith shed more and more brilliancy 
 upon the darkening scene, until the Christian patriot sunk to sleep. 
 
Howard's eulogy. 95 
 
 There is but one more trumpet that can rouse the soldier from his 
 slumber. May we not hope, when we reflect upon his long life 
 spent in the service of his country, that he will appear with his 
 five talents in his hand, saying, " Behold, I have gained other five 
 over and above;" and that the response will be, " Well done, thou 
 good and faithful servant ; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." 
 
 The impression which Andrew Jackson made upon the time in 
 which he lived, is agreed by all to have been deep, and its impor- 
 tance to be great. But how immeasurably is this importance en- 
 hanced by the reflection, that numerous and powerful as the Ame- 
 rican people are, we are still in our infancy. There are those 
 within the sound of my voice whose eyes will witness the close of 
 this century; and in the year 1900, before they taste of death, 
 what will be the spectacle exhibited to their gaze 1 I know that 
 we are reproached with living always in anticipation, and boasting 
 of the greatness which is yet to come. But if we do allow our- 
 selves to raise the curtain of futurity, and gaze upon the distant 
 prospect, it is only to impress more thoroughly upon our minds the 
 conviction that the destiny of unborn millions depends upon us and 
 our actions. The course of public events in our day, casts its sha- 
 dow or its brightness down the long vista of time, and every im- 
 portant step of the government will draw after it a long train of 
 consequences which cannot be avoided. 
 
 I could have wished to have said something of the effects which 
 the life and character of Jackson are likely to produce upon future 
 generations ; but time will not permit. And perhaps, too, the spe- 
 culation would be unsuited to the present purpose. What we de- 
 sire to accomplish by the ceremonies of this day, is that we may 
 all return to our pursuits in life, with our love of country increased, 
 and our admiration of excellence stimulated. We have met under 
 the conviction that our country belongs to us all, as our common 
 property, in the preservation of whose honour every man feels a 
 personal interest. It is said that in the peninsular war, individuals 
 of the hostile armies met, during the interval of a brief truce, upon 
 the banks of a small stream ensanguined by their recent conflict, 
 and exchanged friendly greetings while they sought to slake their 
 thirst. After the celebration of this day shall be over, and we 
 return to the cares and occupations of the busy world, with all its 
 differences of opinion, let us not forget that we are bound up in a 
 common destiny, whether it be for good or for evil ; that there is 
 much, very much, in our public concerns, upon which we have 
 only the feeling which belongs to American citizens ; and that 
 whenever the occasion shall arise for the children of the family to 
 reassemble around the domestic altar, we shall be found ready, 
 heart and hand, to sustain our country's cause, and to swear upon 
 that altar, " The Union must and shall be preserved." 
 
EULOGY 
 
 DELIVERED AT ALBANY, JUNE 30, 1845, 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN VAN BUREN, 
 
 ATTORNEY-GENERAL OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. 
 
 Fellow-Citizens : — This country for the last two weeks has 
 presented a picture which every philosopher and patriot should 
 love to contemplate. On Sunday, the 8th of this month, an 
 event occurred in a far distant section of the Union, the announce- 
 ment of which, as it passed from quarter to quarter, with the cele- 
 rity of communication now so extraordinary, caused a deep and 
 mournful sensation in the popular heart, the intensity of which 
 was certainly never exceeded in the present century. Courts of 
 justice, legislative and municipal bodies in session, or specially 
 assembled for the occasion, as the tidings came, gave expression to 
 their grief, and immediately adjourned. The chief magistrate of 
 the Union, by public proclamation, directed the business of govern- 
 ment to be suspended. City followed city in manifestations of sor- 
 row. The emporium of our state, unequalled in our young repub- 
 lic for its extent, its activity, its enterprise, and its continued strife, 
 bustle, confusion of trade, bowed down in sadness and was hushed 
 in silence. All ordinary avocations were suspended, and tens of 
 thousands of her citizens marched through her majestic streets in a 
 funeral procession unexampled in its numbers and in its solemnity. 
 Public and private buildings were clad in mourning. Eloquent 
 and touching eulogiums were delivered, and everything betokened 
 that deep aiiliction had befallen that city. The melancholy intelli- 
 gence reaches the capital of our state. The public authorities of 
 the state and city exhibit the same feelings of distress, and it is ac- 
 companied b} r similar marks of respect and mourning. The mili- 
 tary and civic societies — our citizens without distinction of party — 
 all ages, sexes, and conditions, assembled to commemorate the event 
 by appropriate ceremonies. Universal grief is depicted on the 
 
 (96) 
 
van bueen's eulogy. 97 
 
 face of the people of the United States — profound sorrow pene- 
 trates the popular heart. 
 
 Why are these things so? What event is heralded that causes 
 this wide-spread movement ? What mean these funeral ceremo- 
 nies, that we have just performed ? What these trappings of woe, 
 that meet our eyes at every glance ? Why is the music that we 
 have just heard, and which is so capable of moving joy and mirth, 
 now so plaintive and so sad? Why am I here, amid many whom 
 I am unaccustomed to meet on public occasions, addressing you 
 in a strain so unusual, if not unnatural? What universal, per- 
 vading, crushing affliction has befallen this country? — what cala- 
 mity has befallen this people ? It is, my friends — I see, and feel, 
 and know that it is — a national mourning for a nation's loss. 
 Andrew Jackson, who has, in an unsurpassed degree, engrossed the 
 public attention for the last thirty years — a soldier, whose brilliant 
 military exploits are the pride and glory, as they were the noble 
 defence, of his country — a statesman, who, through a long, useful, 
 and eventful public life, was fully sustained by a large majority of 
 the American people. — and a man who had, above all others, the 
 merit of attaching to him the warmest regard, and, as some think, 
 idolatrous devotion — of an honesty that all must respect, and a sim- 
 plicity that a child might love, — Andrew Jackson is dead ! and a 
 void is left in the public mind and public heart that we, probably, 
 shall never live to see filled. We are only beginning to realize 
 this truth. Startled, stunned, bewildered, by the melancholy intel- 
 ligence, sufficient time has not elapsed to ascertain the length and 
 breadth of the loss we have sustained ;. but the public appreciation 
 of it may be gathered from the circumstances to which I have al- 
 ready alluded. A stranger to our institutions, and to the character 
 of Andrew Jackson, in view of a scene such as I have faintly de- 
 scribed, on sight of the assemblage here present to-day, would 
 naturally inquire, What high title did the illustrious person hold 
 whom you have assembled to honour? Or, as in your country titles 
 are unknown, what high station did he occupy at the time of his 
 decease? None, sir, none : he was, and had been for eight years, 
 a private citizen. Then, perhaps, he was a neighbour? No, sir: 
 his residence was distant thousands of miles. But probably he was 
 a frequent visiter at your city, and personally well known to the 
 inhabitants ? No, sir : I believe he never was in Albany : and pro- 
 bably not a tenth of the persons present ever saw him. Was his 
 death sudden ? No, sir : every mail for months had been feared a* 
 freighted with the tidings of his decease. Then he must have had 
 relations dwelling among you, and a long line of the bereaved and 
 sorrowing swell this crowd, or suggested this demonstration? Alas! 
 no, sir : he had not a single blood relation in the world. Con- 
 founded by the peculiarity of these circumstances, he might then 
 9 
 
98 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 suggest that some law had been passed, or some proclamation or 
 order issued by some superior power, directing this assemblage and 
 ceremony. Still the answer would be, No, sir, no ! this is a spon- 
 taneous gathering of the people themselves, to do honour to a pri- 
 vate citizen who was a public benefactor ! And you, fellow-citi- 
 zens, do right thus to honour the illustrious dead. It is peculiarly 
 an American duty. Other countries lavish titles and estates upon 
 successful public men, which are transmitted to their descendants} 
 pensions are liberally bestowed upon them and their families ; 
 splendid monuments are erected to their memories. But, with us, 
 the highest title a soldier or statesman can earn, or should wish, is 
 that of being his country's benefactor — his richest pension, the peo- 
 ple's gratitude — his proudest and most durable monument, to be en- 
 shrined in their hearts ; and witnessing, as we do daily, when indi- 
 viduals of high standing and character are taken from us by death, 
 how rapidly the progress of our several avocations, or the occur- 
 rence of more recent and startling events, crowd him from the pub- 
 lic recollection, we can appreciate the wisdom and patriotism of 
 arresting, even for a day, this current which sweeps the things of 
 the present into the oblivion of the past ; of marking the day by 
 memorable observances, and dedicating it to mournful reflection. 
 
 By your partiality, fellow-citizens, I have been invited to parti- 
 cipate in your proceedings this day. If an elaborate eulogium 
 upon the character and virtues of General Jackson had been ex- 
 pected, I am sure a speaker would have been selected who had 
 cultivated more carefully the grace of oratory. If a minute nar- 
 ration of even the stirring events of his extraordinary career had 
 been desired, I should have been obliged to ask you to excuse me, 
 from want of time for preparation. But such is not my impression 
 of either your feelings or expectations. Andrew Jackson needs no 
 eulogy. The greatness of character necessarily impresses itself 
 upon the age in which it exists. No storied urn, or sculptured 
 shaft, or eloquent recital is necessary to fix in the public mind the 
 memory of virtues strongly marked. So, too, the deeds of a states- 
 man and patriot constitute the history of the country ; they are 
 found in elementary books of instruction; they are studied in youth, 
 and reperused in mature age, and form a part of the ordinary in- 
 formation of our citizens ; or, if too recent to be thus written, 
 their bolchu-ss and brilliancy arrest and retain the public attention. 
 
 Nor is this the time or the occasion for anything like a minute 
 narrative of the military and civil career of Andrew Jackson. It 
 is natural, however, in dwelling upon his memory, to recall his 
 appearance and some of the prominent features of his character ; 
 a d, in connexion with these, the mind necessarily reverts to a 
 lt-w of the incidents of his life. I do not hope, in doing this, to 
 buii'j to your attention any novel or unfamiliar facts. It is the 
 
van buren's eulogy. 99 
 
 pride and boast of his admirers, that the great events of Andrew 
 Jackson's life are widely, almost universally known ; and in revert- 
 ing to some of them to-day, I should be more properly regarded as 
 one of you, sharing in your reflections, and thinking aloud, than, 
 as a public speaker, aiming to instruct or enlighten. 
 
 The most striking feature of Gen. Andrew Jackson's character 
 was an irresistible energy. No man could be associated, or even 
 acquainted with him, without feeling its influence. It pervaded 
 even his personal appearance, and made itself felt by his simple 
 presence. Above the ordinary height, and spare in person, his 
 frame seemed incapable of enduring even slight fatigue ; but his 
 erect carriage, firm stride, deep and brilliant eye, emphatic gesture, 
 and nervous, sententious mode of speech, denoted a spirit within, 
 that no obstacle could repress, no danger appal. His health was 
 ever feeble ; and it ma} r safely be said that, from the commence- 
 ment of his public services, in 1812, till the day of his death, was 
 never twenty-four hours free from pain. But no suffering of his 
 body could depress, or even embarrass, the spirit that inhabited it. 
 His campaign in 1813-14, against the Creek Indians, furnishes a 
 happy illustration of his character. The order that summoned 
 him to the Creek war, found him on a bed of sickness. It was re- 
 ceived on the 21th of September, 1813. The next day he ordered 
 his troops to rendezvous at Fayetteville on the 4th of October. 
 
 On the 7th, he took command in person, and on the 3d of No- 
 vember opened the campaign with the fatal blow struck at Talus- 
 kahatchee, where 186 Creeks were left dead upon the field. On 
 the 7th of November, he met and vanquished over 1,000 Creek 
 warriors at Talladega, leaving them to mourn the loss of 300 slain. 
 
 It was then, and ever after, the firm and well-founded belief of 
 Gen. Jackson, that he would have gloriously terminated the wur in 
 one month, if he had been sustained with men, and supplied as he 
 had every reason to expect ; but, abandoned by a portion of his 
 men, and reinforcements failing, the campaign was protracted. 
 The brilliant resistance at Emuckfaw — the gallant and bloody pas- 
 sage at Enotochopco — took place in the month of January, and the 
 campaign was closed in a blaze of glory, on the 27th of March, 
 by the total rout at Tohopeka, or the Horseshoe, where an en- 
 trenched camp, defended by 1 ,000 chosen warriors, was carried by 
 storm, 550 chiefs stretched upon the earth, and 300 prisoners taken. 
 The Indians then sued for peace ; and, on the 10th of July, an advan- 
 tageous treaty was concluded with them, by the brave chieftain 
 who had carried terror and destruction through their borders. 
 
 This campaign against the Creeks illustrates most forcibly the 
 native vigour of his character, and the fertility of his resources. It 
 was undertaken with most limited means — the greater portion of 
 the time his troops had not five days' rations at command. It was 
 
100 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 prosecuted in a distant and savage country, with raw levies of mi- 
 litia, against the most warlike of the Indian tribes, in the face of 
 mutiny, want, desertion, and panic, by a major-general of militia, 
 who had never served in a subordinate rank, and never before com- 
 manded in battle. If anything were wanting to exhibit in bold 
 relief the splendour of this achievement, it is abundantly furnished 
 by the history of subsequent Indian wars. In this history may be 
 found many contrasts, but no parallel. 
 
 I shall allude to but one other event in his military career. His 
 gallant and successful conduct drew towards him universal atten- 
 tion ; and President Madison but conformed to the general expecta- 
 tion, by tendering to him, as he did, on the resignation of General 
 Hampton, the post of brigadier-general in the army. The resigna- 
 tion of General Harrison, shortly after, enabled the president to 
 offer him the post of major-general; and the two commissions 
 were received simultaneously, and the latter accepted. 
 
 On the 22d November, 1814, General Jackson left Mobile for 
 New Orleans, where he arrived on the 1st December. It was 
 known that a large British force was on its way to New Orleans. 
 The importance of defending that city could not be overrated. 
 The troops that were to invade it were flushed with the victories 
 of Bladensburg and Washington. Citizens who should have de- 
 fended it were strongly suspected of disaffection. Whilst a hostile 
 army of tried veterans, strong in numbers, exact in discipline, con- 
 fident of success, were advancing in front, the ill-regulated levies 
 of militia who were to oppose them were surrounded by the timid, 
 the doubtful, and the treacherous. No commander was ever envi- 
 roned with greater difficulties — none ever met them with greater 
 spirit and success. His wonderful power of inspiring confidence 
 in those around him, and the vigour and skill of his movements for 
 the defence of the city, soon changed the aspect of affairs. When 
 he reached New Orleans, few thought it capable of being defended ; 
 in two days after, none thought it susceptible of being taken. 
 
 But it was obvious to General Jackson that success depended on 
 a prompt defensive movement — an attack must be made on the 
 invading army the instant they landed. In answer to an express 
 from General Carroll, whose division had been delayed on its way 
 to New Orleans, he said, " I am resolved, feeble as my force is, to 
 assail the enemy on his first landing, and perish sooner than he 
 shall reach the city." The determination, thus nobly expressed, 
 was promptly executed. The British landed on the 23d, fifteen 
 miles below New Orleans. The intelligence was communicated to 
 Jackson at one o'clock in the afternoon, and the same evening he 
 attacked them with his whole disposable force. 
 
 For a most interesting account of this desperate and bloody en- 
 gagement, I refer you to the narration of an English officer who 
 
VAN BUREN'.n ECI.OGY. 101 
 
 was engaged in it, in a work entitled "Campaigns in America, by 
 a Subaltern." I well remember his description of the confusion, 
 dismay, and death of that eventful night. Commodore Patterson 
 commanded a schooner which dropped down the Mississippi, abreast 
 of the British line, and anchored. When hailed by their sentinels 
 a third time, he said, "Give them this, boys! for the honour of 
 America," accompanied by a shower of grape and canister. 
 
 This battle saved New Orleans. It checked the treacherous, 
 confirmed the wavering, inspired the true. It was, too, in the 
 judgment of the military men, a masterly movement. The enemy 
 till then had been unmolested ; they had reason to expect a friendly 
 reception; the next day they would have advanced on New Or- 
 leans. The night assault on the 23d checked and drove them back 
 — it taught them respect for the American arms, and led them to 
 over-estimate the number of our forces. Jt came upon them at 
 night, in a strange land, unexpected, and when but a part of their 
 forces were lauded. It carried confusion and panic into their 
 ranks, and dispelled the terror of their invincibility ; and although 
 the brilliant victory of the 1st of January, and the total and memor- 
 able rout of the 8th, finally expelled the invaders, they but com- 
 pleted and perfected what the master-stroke of the 23d had so well 
 beo-un. The forces of the British vastly exceeded those of the at- 
 tacking party ; and this fact strongly illustrates the natural and 
 intuitive skill of General Jackson in the art of war. It was the 
 maxim of Napoleon, the great master of this science, that an in- 
 ferior force should never wait to be attacked ; for, by advancing, 
 they either fall with all their strength on a single point when they 
 are'not expected, or meet the opposing columns on the advance, 
 when bravery gives the victory — or, in his own nervous language, 
 " C'est une affaire de tetes de colonnes aii la bravoure settle decide 
 touf." 
 
 There were many points of resemblance between Napoleon and 
 Jackson. Both were remarkable for impetuosity : both acted on 
 the offensive ; both, in emergencies, hazarded much, if not all, on 
 the celerity and success of their assaults: both carried a war into 
 the heart of an enemy's country : both were celebrated for rapidity 
 and exactness of combination; both startled their adversaries by 
 sudden and unlooked-for attacks. There was a similarity even in 
 the impassioned, sententious, and sanguine appeals of both to their 
 respective armies ; and both attained signal and brilliant success. 
 But, fortunately for our country, and for him whose fame we 
 cherish, the points of difference are equally striking. Napoleon 
 aimed at the conquest of a world, and would have established a sole 
 monarchy, if not despotism; his restless ambition knew no goal 
 short of universal dominion; and, after overrunning, with his suc- 
 cessful armies, a great part of the globe, he was driven from his 
 
102 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 kingdom and his throne, confined in a solitary and remote island, 
 and his uncontrollable spirit fretted itself out against the bars of the 
 prison. Jackson drew his sword only at his country's call ; it was 
 never wielded but in defence of her soil, her rights, and liberties ; 
 he sheathed it but to return to the bosom of his family and the 
 pleasure of domestic life ; he was attended always by the grateful 
 plaudits of a people whose liberties he had defended, and, after re- 
 ceiving the highest honours of the republic, his last days were 
 cheered with the sight of a country's prosperity, to whose service 
 his life had been devoted, and he is followed to the grave by a 
 nation of mourners. 
 
 Fellow-citizens : I have thus far spoken exclusively of the mar- 
 tial conduct of the illustrious deceased. A few of the marked 
 events of his life have been referred to as illustrating it. He had 
 other traits of character, which drew to him a large share of the 
 public attention and regard ; and, in referring to them, I may inci- 
 dentally advert, in some degree, to portions of his public and pri- 
 vate life, which have been the subject of angry discussion. I do 
 so in no spirit of party. I shall even seek to forget that his great 
 name was ever connected with party divisions. If a sense of ordi- 
 nary propriety did not induce me to this course, the scene now 
 around me, and the circumstances which have led to it, admonish 
 me to abstain. Here, in the city of Albany, where party conflicts 
 run highest and hottest, where the annual assemblage of the legis- 
 lature freshens and renews political divisions — here, in our streets 
 which have resounded for ten years with the slogan of Jackson's 
 name, and on the very spot from which his praise and his censures 
 have been so freely spoken — our citizens, under the lead of the 
 common council, without distinction of party, are assembled to do 
 honour to the memory of a great democratic leader, forgetting in 
 his grave all but his patriotism and his valour. I shall endeavour 
 to imitate this honourable magnanimity, by wholly omitting a 
 specific reference to those acts of his civil life which, in my sincere 
 and humble judgment, would constitute the brightest flower in his 
 chaplet of fame. 
 
 But it will be no departure from this rule to claim lor this illus- 
 trious man the meed of true patriotism. A life devoted to the ser- 
 vice of his country, a frame enfeebled in its defence, and an ardent, 
 generous popular attachment, are witnesses not to be resisted. His 
 earliest strength was given to our defence — his latest prayers were 
 for our prosperity. And there were two occasions in his presi- 
 dential career, when the spirit of party was hushed, and the coun- 
 try, with almost one accord, rallied to his support. The first was 
 the bold and manly stand that he took with our ancient ally, France ; 
 and the second, the vigorous enforcement of the laws in his native 
 
van buren's eulogy. 103 
 
 state of South Carolina. His earnest sincerity and stern resolution 
 on both these occasions were crowned with emphatic success. 
 
 Popular liberty, in its largest sense, had no more thorough de- 
 votee than Andrew Jackson. Inheriting from his father a hatred 
 of Great Britain ; taken prisoner in childhood by the British forces 
 in the Revolution, and exposed to cruel indignities ; a mother and 
 brothers sinking into the grave under British barbarity ; engaged 
 for a large portion of his military life in desperate conflicts with 
 savages incited by British emissaries, and sickening at the atroci- 
 ties they committed ; and, finally, a leader in those great victories 
 over the British troops which have immortalized his name, — every 
 sentiment of his nature, and every aspiration of his heart, was im- 
 bued with jealousy of British influence, aversion to the British form 
 of government, and horror of British tyranny. This predominant 
 idea coloured every action of his public life. It was earliest in his 
 mind, most present with him through life, and one of the last to 
 leave him in death. Whenever invasion or encroachment was 
 threatened from that quarter, all his sensibilities were awakened, all 
 his indignation aroused. Whenever he thought he saw a disposi- 
 tion to warp our simple, free, and equal government into an aristo- 
 cratic direction, he opposed a stern but honest, uncalculating but 
 always successful resistance. In some instances, he may have mis- 
 judged ; but his impulses were always honest, and sustained by 
 public approbation. And it is a singular tribute to inflexible 
 honesty, as well as splendid genius, that, although such were his 
 feelings and his conduct towards Great Britain, no American stood 
 higher in the estimation of the British public, as I have had fre- 
 quent personal opportunities of knowing ; and although his mode 
 of presenting our claims on France interrupted, for a time, the di- 
 plomatic relations of the two countries, and involved, in some de- 
 gree, a personal issue with its king, the last portrait of his venera- 
 ble form was taken for, and at the solicitation of, Louis Philippe. 
 
 His personal attachments were strong and immoveable — he never 
 forsook a friend. Open, frank, and ingenuous in his nature, he 
 heeded no misrepresentations of those he loved, and cherished no 
 suspicion; and this trusting, truthful attachment, was fully returned 
 by his friends ; his popularity was unbounded — the personal devo- 
 tion to him almost romantic. 
 
 His habits in life were simple in the extreme. Frugal in his 
 diet, the luxuries of the presidential mansion passed by him un- 
 touched ; modest and unostentatious, quiet and unpretending, no 
 man seemed less to covet the notoriety which for the last thirty 
 years of his life it was impossible to avoid ; distinguished for the 
 natural ease and elegance of his manners, with a brilliant reputa- 
 tion and sufficient fortune, he would have received unwonted hon- 
 ours in any foreign land. Yet he never left the United States: 
 
101 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 and never expressed a desire to do so, unless it might be to march 
 into Canada during the last war. Wedded to the endearments of 
 domestic and private life, he manifested the sincerity of his attach- 
 ment to them, by resigning the successive offices of United States 
 senator, judge of the Supreme Court, and others which he held, and 
 declining several that were tendered to him, and devoting himself 
 to his profession and family. 
 
 He never seemed conscious of personal danger. By this, I do 
 not mean that he experienced no fear — or still less, that he was 
 possessed of courage. These are qualities that may be, and fre- 
 quently are, found in the worst of our species. Education, habit, 
 accident, may invest any one with courage ; animals possess it. 
 But General Jackson had something more. His whole life is stud- 
 ded with examples of this. I refer to a few, which are selected as 
 most unnatural, and most likely to have disturbed his composure. 
 When a young man felt called upon to attempt an indignity upon 
 him, stricken in years, and president of the United States, his cane 
 was instantly raised to chastise him, and he was with difficulty re- 
 strained. When an exasperated mob surrounded the President's 
 House, and threatened his life, the marshal offered him a score of 
 constables ; the military and naval officers volunteered to him a 
 guard; the members of his cabinet, and other friends, desired to 
 watch with him in his house : he resolutely declined all these 
 offers. Towards evening he procured two or three guns, and, with 
 only his nephew and a servant in the house, went to sleep as quietly 
 as an infant in his cradle. When an assassin set upon him in the 
 capitol, with a double-barrelled pistol loaded, as he was making his 
 way out from a funeral, after one barrel had been snapped within 
 ten feet of his face, and the other was pointed at him, he advanced 
 upon the madman with uplifted cane, and would have struck him 
 to the earth, but for the interference of friends. He was never 
 taken by surprise — counted no odds — required no notice. I doubt 
 if ever a man lived of such immoveable nerve, who was so entirely 
 unconscious of personal danger — so wholly forgetful of himself and 
 his perils. 
 
 His attention to young men was of the most kind and attentive 
 character. He had no children, and, as has been so beautifully 
 said of General Washington, Providence denied him children, that 
 he might be the father of his country. He entered into all the 
 feelings of youth, sympathized with its amusements and pleasures, 
 forgave its frailties, was always ready with advice and assistance 
 for those who asked either, and manifested a sincere and warm in- 
 terest in the conduct and fortunes of his young acquaintances. 
 How this added to his fascination, may well be judged. 
 
 In 1794, he was married to his late wife, Rachel Donelson, who 
 had previously been divorced from her husband, Mr. Robards. She 
 
van buren's eulogy. 105 
 
 is described as having been remarkable for beauty, affability, and 
 sweetness of temper ; and nothing could exceed the tenderness and 
 touching devotion of General Jackson to her kindred. Perhaps I 
 do wrong to expose so tender and delicate a relation as a husband's 
 love to the rude gaze of the public ; but those who knew the 
 lamented deceased would hardly recognise his character if this dis- 
 tinguished feature were absent. During her life, she had not a 
 wish ungratified, not a want unanticipated. Her remotest kindred 
 became as her nearest and dearest relatives — her ordinary acquaint- 
 ances as his most attached friends. After her death, which occur- 
 red just previous to his assuming the presidency, her image was 
 ever at his side, thoughts of her ever in his mind. He declined 
 the honour of an imperial sarcophagus, and only sought a tomb by 
 her side. His dying moments were cheered, at his request, by 
 bringing her portrait in his sight ; and his last breath wafted to 
 heaven a prayer that he might join her! He was a truly good 
 man. Not that he passed his days in deeds of ostentatious benevo- 
 lence — not that he sought out splendid altars at which to worship 
 — not that he attached himself, in early life, to a particular sect, or 
 adopted particular tenets, and considered all who differed from him 
 as irretrievably lost. His was not a religion of clime or a country, 
 or a sect or a persuasion ; but he illustrated, in his daily walk and 
 conduct, by acts of private benevolence, kind regard for all around 
 him, universal charity and love — that true piety of the heart that 
 worships God everywhere and any way, that cannot be feigned, 
 and invites no false imitation ; and when he came to die, he mani- 
 fested the courage of a true believer. Death comes in many shapes 
 where it may be met unmoved. In the rage of battle, amid the din 
 of arms, in the confusion and shock of contest, the cheer of the 
 victors, and the groans of the vanquished, I am told, and can well 
 imagine, all sense that life is in jeopardy is banished. So, too, 
 where a strong man, in the vigour of his health and intellect, in 
 the full possession of his faculties, is summoned to yield to the 
 king of terrors, his constancy may not forsake him. But to sit for 
 weeks bowed down with bodily anguish, the eye and the ear gra- 
 dually growing dull, the faculties failing; to watch the sands of 
 life surely and palpably wasting awaj' — if I may so speak — thus 
 prostrated and enfeebled, to stare death in the face, and describe 
 his approaches in writing to your friends ; to summon one's family 
 to the bedside, and calmly take leave of each member of it ; to 
 calmly await his fatal stroke without inviting or avoiding it : he 
 who does this, must rise above and beyond the allurements, the 
 vexations, and the pains of this world, and feel an assured hope of 
 a glorious immortality. 
 
 So died Andrew Jackson ! at peace with God and man, forgiving 
 
106 monument to jackson. 
 
 his enemies, and invoking blessings on his country. May it be said 
 of those who are now looking into his new grave to cavil and cen- 
 sure, that their last end was like his! 
 
 Fellow-citizens, I have thus faintly and feebly sketched the cha- 
 racter of him whose memory we honour. I have committed my 
 remarks to paper, because, otherwise, I could not be certain what 
 I should say, and I wished carefully to avoid giving any offence. 
 I know I have imperfectly discharged the duty assigned to me. I 
 have made nothing that deserves the name of preparation, nor 
 should I wish to do so ; death gives no note of preparation, and he 
 who follows his shafts, and mounts over the desolation they cause, 
 should require no preparation. Grief vents itself in simple and 
 unstudied language. Elaborate eulogies may be impressive or the 
 reverse, not according to the merit of the subject, but to the skill 
 of the performer. 
 
 The appearance of mourners here to-day is most suitable. The 
 Masonic fraternity lament the loss of a high officer : these splendid 
 volunteer companies do right to honour one who won his earliest 
 honours in the ranks of the militia, and reflected glory on the citi- 
 zen soldiery. The officers and privates of the army most fitly pay 
 respects to one who, with a single bound, sprang to their front 
 ranks, and in a twelvemonth's career immortalized the skill and 
 valour of the American arms. Benevolent societies ! you should 
 be here, for benevolence has lost a patron. Executive, legislative, 
 judicial officers, Jackson was the associate of some, the predecessor 
 of others, the compeer of all of you. Few and lingering sur- 
 vivors of those who achieved our independence, a comrade has 
 preceded you, who shed his most youthful blood at your side ; you 
 do well to gather and to grieve round his tomb. Ladies! you are 
 honouring one, the most gallant of mankind- — one who repelled 
 the invaders of our country, pressing forward under the brutal 
 watchword of " beauty and booty" — one whose whole heart was 
 bound up in an individual of your sex, whom he loved in life, and 
 whose death he continually mourned ; but through whom, and in 
 whom, and for whom, he respected and honoured all the rest of 
 the sex. 
 
 Citizens all ! your presence here is natural and necessary. The 
 United States have lost a defender, humanity a friend, the world a 
 benefactor. 
 
 Fellow-citizens ! a word at parting. Fifty years from to-day, 
 and in the ordinary course of human events, he who addresses you, 
 and all those within reach of his voice, will slumber in the grave. 
 These forms, now so vigorous, voices so full, eyes so bright, will 
 have passed away ; probably the party divisions of the day will be 
 effaced ; perhaps the government itself may be changed. But the 
 
VAN buren's eulogy. 107 
 
 fame of him we now honour will be perpetuated in song and in 
 story — history will record his great deeds — poetry will illustrate 
 his many virtues — the canvass and the marble will hand down his 
 lineaments to posterity ; and Avhatever personal or party feeling 
 may now suggest, it will then be no mean praise to say of us, " He 
 was the one who joined in a tribute of respect and gratitude to the 
 patriot Jackson." 
 
EULOGY 
 
 DELIVERED AT PITTSBURGH, JULY 17, 1845, 
 
 BY THE 
 
 Hon. WILSON McCANDLESS. 
 
 y \S\s \j"'Vy» \* V <s 
 
 " The Lord of Hosts has taken away the mighty man, and the 
 man of war," the accomplished civilian and the great captain of 
 the age. 
 
 The people praise him — the nation mourns him : he has gone 
 down to an humble and unpretending tomb, there to await the 
 summons of the archangel to the resurrection of the just. 
 
 What a spectacle is here presented to the eye of the civilized 
 world ! This is no tribute to power, no suppliancy to wealth ; no 
 bowing of the knee to congregated authority. It is the voluntary 
 offering of a free and generous constituency to one linked to them 
 by ties that nature holds indissoluble. Like the silver cord of pure 
 affection, which connects us with beings of the spiritual world, 
 these ties cannot be severed by the convulsions of personal and 
 party warfare. In one mind and one spirit, and as brethren of the 
 same household, you have come up to this place in sadness to per- 
 form a melancholy but patriotic duty. 
 
 The bells have tolled — the funeral song is sung — the muffled 
 drum has revealed its mournful tale — the proud emblem of our na- 
 tional sovereignty is shrouded in sable — the trumpet to the cannon 
 speaks throughout the land, that one of her gifted sons has fulfilled 
 his destiny, and surrendered his spirit to God who gave it. 
 
 And, fellow-countrymen, in commemorating the virtues of de- 
 parted worth ; in celebrating a name full of interest and love of 
 country, let us not forget that this Hero, like his great prototype 
 of the Revolution, relied not on his own arm, but upon that Omni- 
 potence which controls the operations of republics and kingdoms, 
 and who also sheds upon us His tender mercies, with all the reno- 
 vating influence of the early and the latter rain. 
 
 (10P) 
 
McCANDLESS's EULOGY. 109 
 
 Emulating this illustrious example, derived from high authority, 
 let us not worship false gods in the hour of our extremity. 
 
 Potent as may be our means of attack and defence, proud as we 
 may be of our prowess and valour, and animated with a conscious- 
 ness of the rectitude of our cause, we must look to the Source of all 
 power for that assistance which commands success. 
 
 Jackson's nativity was amid the happy hills, the pleasant shades, 
 and refreshing gales of the Palmetto State — that state which he re- 
 garded with filial love, but whose truant spirit he was compelled to 
 rebuke, when in after years she manifested a rebel disposition 
 towards the government which in justice and wisdom he adminis- 
 tered. 
 
 He cherished that state. With touching sensibility he remem- 
 bered the play-grounds of his early days ; and when in the stern 
 reality of mature life, he was called, by the responsibility of his 
 political position, to correct the errors and defections of her states- 
 men, he did so as one honouring his parentage, but resolved to 
 execute his high commission. 
 
 Nursed in the lap of a mother who fled from the oppression of a 
 foreign land to seek refuge in this, he imbibed those sentiments of 
 patriotism which prompted him, when a stripling, to battle against 
 a sovereign who arrogated to himself the name of the Lord's 
 anointed. 
 
 That mother offered up her whole family, except her last-born 
 son, upon the altar of her country ; and, like Abraham, she would 
 have sacrificed him too, had not her hand been stayed by an invisi- 
 ble Power. 
 
 That same spirit which animated the mothers of New England, 
 prior to the contest of Lexington, actuated her to resist foreign ag- 
 gression, although at the expense of domestic immolation, — and as 
 son after son shouldered his musket, and departed to participate in 
 the danger and glory of the great struggle for republican liberty, 
 that mother forgot the natural yearnings for her offspring, in her 
 deep-seated love for the land of her adoption. She knew not. at 
 that early period, the reward that was in store for her favoured 
 and favourite child. Her imagination had not pictured a new em- 
 pire springing into existence, which would rival the Colossus of 
 the Old World — one that would humble his strength, and dry up 
 the sources of his power — and she could not see in the youthful 
 Carolinian the successful general or the popular president of a new 
 republic, predestinated to revolutionize the workings of the social 
 system. But if it is permitted to those called hence, to witness, 
 from their lofty sphere, the changes and chances of this life, to 
 partake of our joys and sorrows, with what maternal exultation 
 must she have pursued his brilliant career, and gazed with fondness 
 upon its happy termination. 
 10 
 
J 10 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 Education, profound or polite, was not to be acquired during the 
 stirrino" scenes of the Revolutionary war. The schoolmaster was 
 there, °but his superiority was superseded by a higher authority. 
 Even the sanctity of the "Meeting House," where the Rev. Mr. 
 Humphries instructed Jackson in the dead languages, was invaded, 
 and the pedagogue and his pupils were placed upon an equality W 
 preparing for the common defence. Books were turned into wad- 
 din^. The ferule was supplanted by the sword, and the fool's-cap 
 by the helmet. The hunting-shirt took the place of the round- 
 about, and the rifle and the powder-horn that of the satchel. The 
 juvenile ramparts thrown up at mid-day were deserted, and pro- 
 tection was sought for in the forts and block-houses of the early 
 pioneers. 
 
 In the midst of all this excitement, Jackson acquired the rudi- 
 ments of an education, which, riveted upon his strong faculties, 
 enabled him to surmount difficulties in his subsequent acquisitions 
 of knowledge, which were illustrated in the military and intellec- 
 tual achievements of his maturer years. 
 
 His mother died when, with Christian zeal, she was in the ful- 
 filment of an errand of mercy to the prison-ships at Charleston. 
 
 Isolated, stript of the endearments of home and consanguinity, 
 and in the possession of a trifling patrimony, he entered upon those 
 studies that were to fit him for the world's criticisms and the world's 
 charity. 
 
 Waxhaw had no more charms for him ; the last link that con- 
 nected him with that spot was broken. Beneath the broad elm in 
 the rural church-yard, was deposited the mortal remains of her to 
 whom he looked for advice and consolation. The old thatched 
 roof, which protected him in infancy, was only associated with 
 death and desolation. The spring, at his father's door, where he 
 allayed his thirst ofter the pastime of a summer day, had no longer 
 refreshment for him. His companions were all gone — they had 
 been sacrificed to the vengeance of a ruthless tyranny. But he 
 goes, leaving the scenes of his youth and his early associations, and 
 enters upon the study of the law. 
 
 Notwithstanding the perplexities incident to this pursuit, and 
 "reatly aggravated by an imperfect education, he triumphed here, 
 as in the field of battle ; and his indomitable courage and love of 
 adventure prompted him to explore a scene of future action, suited 
 to the bravery and independence of his character. 
 
 Boon and his companions had been monarchs of all they sur- 
 veyed. They had contended for supremacy upon the dark and 
 bloody ground, where many a battle was lost and won with an in- 
 trepidity that commanded, as it deserved, the admiration of suc- 
 ceeding generations. 
 
 Wild and uncivilized as was this territory at the period now re- 
 
M -caNdLEss's eulogv. Ill 
 
 ferred to, the Anglo-Saxon blood could not be restrained within its 
 limits, but bursting the bounds of semi-civilized society, sought a 
 more extensive field upon which to develope its love of forest life, 
 its excitements and toils. 
 
 Tennessee opened a new area for the youthful ardour of the 
 country. Rich in valleys and plains, teeming with the rare ver- 
 dure of an untilled soil, and interspersed with barren hills which 
 yield no products 
 
 " But man and steel, the soldier and his sword;" 
 
 many a young man wandered there, to test the strength of his 
 constitution, and to carve his way to glory and to fame — 
 
 Thence went Andrew Jackson. 
 
 The incursions and the depredations of the savages soon afforded 
 him an opportunity to display those military qualities, which sub- 
 sequently raised him to posts of the highest distinction. His 
 bravery excited fear from his enemies, and commanded their ad- 
 miration. The red warrior who fired the cabin and scalped the 
 unprotected mother and children, received his recompense in the 
 deadly aim of our hero's fire-arms — confidence was excited in the 
 ability of the white man to hold at bay, and finally subdue this 
 formidable antagonist, and although the crack of the rifle, and the 
 yell of the Indian, yet assailed the ear of the people, they as- 
 sembled in solemn council, to form a constitution for their mutual 
 government and safety. 
 
 To that covention Jackson was elected a delegate ; and he there 
 exhibited the same skill and discernment in laying the foundations 
 of a state, that he exhibited in other grave enterprises, civil and 
 military. Stout hearts and strong minds were present at that convo- 
 cation; and among them, pre-eminent in judgment and debate, was 
 the subject of this eulogy. They modelled a constitution, republi- 
 can and conservative in its character, and were admitted into 
 
 "The immortal league of love that hinds 
 Our fair broad empire, slate with state." 
 
 Talents of the high order manifested by him were not permitted 
 to slumber in the seclusion of obscurity. Honoured with the ap- 
 probation of a constituency whom he prized and loved, he was 
 sent by acclamation to represent the people of the new-born state 
 in the Congress of the Union. Thence he was transmitted to that 
 august body, the Senate of the United States, there to be associated 
 with some of the founders and fathers of the republic, in maturing 
 a system of laws in conformity to the great fundamental instrument 
 of our national creation. 
 
112 MONt"Mi:XT TO JACKSON. 
 
 Although he was neither «' the cunning artificer, nor the elo- 
 quent orator," he was gifted by Heaven with those masculine pow- 
 ers of mind which rendered him a valuable adjunct to the senators 
 by whom he was surrounded. The principal measure to which he 
 devoted his attention, during his legislative career, was the repeal 
 of the alien law, that odious enactment so repugnant to the spirit 
 of our inimitable institutions. 
 
 Anxious for that retirement so often sought for, and seldom at- 
 tained by the eminent and the good, he abandoned the stage of 
 political collision, before the expiration of his constitutional term, 
 and took up his abode on the sunny banks of the Cumberland river. 
 Like the noble old Roman, he was not permitted to repose long 
 under his own vine and fig-tree, until popular sentiment called him 
 to the exercise of the highest judicial functions of the state. 
 
 Distrustful of his legal attainments, and his ability to spread the 
 broad platform on which was to rest the jurisprudence of Tennes- 
 see in all future time, he accepted and exercised the duties of his 
 high vocation only for a limited period. 
 
 "Clear and discriminating, he looked more to the essence thai; to 
 the bodily form of the subject. Justice, equity, a sense of right, 
 prevailed over mere legal technicality ; and when his decree vus 
 made, it was as unalterable as the laws of the Medes and the Per- 
 sians. More — when the ministerial authority was set at defiance 
 by the turbulent spirits of the day, he was the first to inculcate, by 
 his presence and courage, unconditional submission to the laws. In 
 this he illustrates the force and beauty of our political system. 
 
 When the whole popular momentum is brought to bear, by the 
 exigency of a single writ, upon an insubordinate member of so- 
 ciety, the bench, the workshop, and the pulpit may be impressed 
 into the civil police, to restore order, or compel a compliance with 
 the judgments of the constitutional courts of the country. The 
 offended or defeated party may appeal to Ca?sar, but he must re- 
 spect the edicts of the lesser tribunal. Upon this is dependent the 
 proper administration of justice to all classes of the community. 
 
 Jackson found many, during his brief judicial career, who re- 
 garded animal force as paramount to legal obligation, and he 
 checked the revolutionary spirit by a ready and resolute compli- 
 ance, on his own part, with the requisitions of the proper office, 
 enjoined to execute the mandates of the law. 
 
 Once more in retirement, surrounded by ardent friends and gene- 
 rous neighbours, and in the enjoyment of that recreation necessary 
 for the restoration of a debilitated constitution, the judge was 
 merged in the farmer, and he so continued until his country called 
 him to the protection of our southern frontier, from the attacks of 
 a bloody and relentless adversary. 
 
 With alacrity he obeyed the call. To his standard flocked bun- 
 
McCANDLESS's EULOGY. 113 
 
 dreds of his countrymen, eager as himself* for the tight. The close 
 of the campaign showed that the valour attributed to each was not 
 counterfeit or misplaced. 
 
 To the Creek war we may refer with pride and satisfaction, as 
 rivalling in glory the achievements of the youthful Corsican upon 
 the plains of Italy. 
 
 Encompassed everywhere with the apprehension of disease, and 
 the reality of famine, victory succeeded victory, until the machi- 
 nations of Tecumseh, the divinations of his brother the Prophet, 
 and the " savage" diplomacy of Great Britain, were overwhelmed 
 by the bravery of the commander and his men. 
 
 The battle of Talushatchee, under the direction of the unsubdued 
 and unconquerable Coffee, was a prelude to the rout at Talladega. 
 But at Talladega, astounded, scattered, dismayed, these heretofore 
 invincible warriors fled before the valiant men under Jackson's 
 command, until night intervened and arrested the pursuit. 
 
 This battle, the first successful blow at Creek sovereignty on the 
 soil of Alabama, animated the hopes and raised the languishing 
 spirits of the gallant Tennesseeans. They fought as men never 
 fought before — mutiny was absorbed in discipline, and love of home 
 in love of country. Admonished by the advice of Washington 
 to Braddock, on the shores of our own Monongahela, they encoun- 
 tered deep ravines and a clandestine foe, with an energy that con- 
 founded, surprised, and put to rout their enemies. 
 
 From Emuckfaw to Tohopeka, their march was a succession of 
 brilliant achievements ; and extermination would have been the 
 fate of these infatuated tribes, had they not sued for quarter and 
 despatched the calumet of peace to their intrepid conqueror. 
 
 After this last great contest with the Creeks, Jackson addressed 
 his soldiers in the following words, that blaze and burn with the 
 patriotic feelings of the nation's champion. 
 
 " You have entitled yourselves to the gratitude of your general 
 and your country. You have opened your way to the Tallapoosa, 
 and destroyed a confederacy of the enemy, ferocious by nature, 
 and grown insolent from impunity. The fiends will no longer 
 murder our women and children, or disturb the quiet of our borders. 
 Their midnight flambeaux will no longer illumine their council- 
 house, or shine upon the victim of their infernal orgies. In their 
 places, a new generation will arise — the weapons of warfare will 
 be exchanged for the utensils of husbandry ; and the wilderness, 
 which now withers in sterility, and mourns the desolation which 
 overspreads her, will blossom as the rose, and become the nursery 
 of the arts. It is lamentable that the path of peace should lead 
 through blood, and over the bodies of the slain: but to inflict partial 
 evils that s;ood may come, is a dispensation of Divine Providence." 
 10* 
 
114 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 The prophecy was fulfilled long before the undaunted general 
 had completed his earthly career. 
 
 These heroic deeds attracted the attention of the general govern- 
 ment; and when that crisis came, that was to exhibit to an impar- 
 tial world that our ancient enemy, jealous of our rapid progress to 
 glory and empire, trampled upon the rights and prerogatives of 
 freemen, Jackson was honoured by the executive with the appoint- 
 ment of major-general in the regular army. 
 
 This was in May, 1814. After treating with the enemy he had 
 subdued, he marched in the autumn of that year to the south, to 
 counteract the operations of the British and Indians who had made 
 a hostile demonstration in that quarter. As Spain, a neutral na- 
 tion, harboured them, while they were harassing our border, he 
 exercised the right of a belligerent, acting upon the principles of 
 self-preservation, and reduced her forts, and planted the American 
 eagle on the walls of Pensacola. 
 
 A lowering cloud hung over Louisiana. Threatened with the 
 arrival of a well-appointed and disciplined army, unprepared with 
 men or the munitions of war, fear and despondency shook the faith 
 and paralyzed the arm of her motley population. Dread and dis- 
 may was depicted in every countenance, until the invincible ge- 
 neral, with stern aspect and indomitable resolution, declared in 
 tones of thunder that the enemy should never reach the city. 
 
 He gathered his limited means of defence. He fortified every 
 vulnerable point. Sleepless, active, vigilant himself, he animated 
 the people by his bold and courageous deportment. He told them 
 they were contending for all that could render life desirable, " For 
 your property and lives; for that which is dearer than all, your 
 wives and your children, for liberty ; without which, country, life, 
 and property are not worth possessing. Even the embraces of 
 wives and children are a reproach to the wretch who would de- 
 prive them by his cowardice of those inestimable blessings. 
 
 " Natives of the United States! the enemy you have to contend 
 with, are the oppressors of your youthful political existence — they 
 are the oppressors your fathers fought and conquered — descendants 
 of Frenchmen ! natives of France ! they are English , the hereditary 
 and eternal enemies of your ancient country, the invaders of that 
 you have adopted! Spaniards! remember the conduct of your 
 allies at St. Sebastian, and recently Pensacola, and rejoice that you 
 have an opportunity of avenging the brutal injuries of men who 
 dishonour the human race. Louisianians ! your general rejoices to 
 witness the spirit that animates you, not only for your honour, but 
 your safety. Your enemy is near, his sail already covers the lakes; 
 but the brave are united, and if he finds us contending among our- 
 selves, it will be for the prize of valour, and fame, its noblest 
 reward." 
 
McCANDLESS's EULOGY. 115 
 
 Such was the eloquent appeal of this illustrious patriot, to the 
 raw and undisciplined army under his control. The deepest solici- 
 tude filled his heart, panic and peril surrounded him. The unre- 
 dressed rights and wrongs of the American people were concen- 
 trated upon him; a nation's hope and a nation's glory rested upon 
 his lone arm. Peace, happiness, and contentment, the unsullied 
 honour of our flag, and the brilliant or mortifying termination of a 
 disastrous war, depended upon bravery and discretion, and nobly 
 did he redeem his pledge for the public security. 
 
 But in his midst were traitors and miscreants, who would have 
 sold New Orleans for an equivalent — men who, like the fox, 
 " barked not until they could steal the lamb." 
 
 To stifle in embryo this infidelity to the country, and under the 
 solemn conviction that the forms of the constitution should be sus- 
 pended to protect the rights of the citizens, he declared martial 
 law, and superseded the functions of civil authority. 
 
 News arrived at meridian on the 23d December, that the main 
 body of the enemy had landed. Electric as was the shock to those 
 who surrounded him, to the general it was the signal for immediate 
 action. He was aware of the necessity of a repulse, to stimulate 
 the despondent, and prepare for the great contest that was to bring 
 disgrace or glory on our arms. His decision was prompt. He 
 resolved to meet them that night. When the sun had gone down 
 — when his parting rays shed a faint glimmering in the west, and 
 all nature sought repose amid the shadows of the evening, Jackson 
 was preparing for conflict with an ardour and an energy premoni- 
 tory of eminent success. 
 
 At midnight, with scarcely a solitary star to illumine his path, 
 but directed by a ray of light such as guided the shepherds " on 
 the plains of Babylon," he approached the enemy, drove him from 
 his position of fancied security, and like Gideon in pursuit of Zebah 
 and Zalmunna, princes of Midian, he returned from battle " before 
 the sun was up." 
 
 The events of that night were pregnant with the most important 
 results. New life was infused into the army. No longer appalled 
 and disheartened by the reputation and numbers of their transatlan- 
 tic foe, and proud of their general and his staff, they reached the 
 city flushed with the confident expectation that once more to the 
 breach and the struggle would be ended. 
 
 That struggle came, and their anticipations were realized. 
 
 The memorable 8th of January, 1815, dawned amid the din and 
 preparation of the contending armies. Great as was the disparity 
 in numbers, the presiding genius roused the valour of his troops 
 and prepared them for battle — they fought, fought with the energy 
 of veterans, and fell like the bravest of the brave — amid bombs, and 
 balls, and congreve rockets, they poured a deadly fire on the ad- 
 
116 MONTMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 vancing columns, and illuminated the heavens with the unremitting 
 flash of their artillery. 
 
 But I am inadequate to the office of description, and shall not 
 detain you with the details of that gallant strife. They are as 
 familiar as household words, and must be impressed indelibly upon 
 the memory of American citizens. 
 
 The triumphant decision of that day you know. It came upon 
 the country like a clap of thunder in the clear azure vault of the 
 firmament, and travelled with electro-magnetic velocity, through- 
 out the confines of the land. 
 
 To the victor was awarded a nation's blessing, to his men a na- 
 tion's gratitude — and anthems, and prayers, and praises M'ere of- 
 fered up in sincerity and truth, in the temples of the living God, 
 for His gracious protection to our political institutions, through the 
 instrumentality of his illustrious servant. 
 
 The measure of Jackson's glory was not full. He had van- 
 quished tribes of cruel and barbarous Indians. He had conquered 
 a haughty and insolent foe. He had established the second inde- 
 pendence of his country, but to the constitution of that country he 
 rendered a tribute, that will stamp him with an undying name. 
 
 Idolized by the people whose city he had saved ; cheered by the 
 huzzas of the multitude wherever he went ; surrounded by a vic- 
 torious soldiery, and armed with all the pomp and circumstance of 
 glorious war, he was arraigned for contempt before the judicial 
 authority of the government. 
 
 Did he resist ? No ! A thousand sabres would have leaped 
 from their scabbards for his security, if he had indicated such a 
 wish. He forebore — he submitted, however unjust the decree, to 
 the legally constituted tribunal, and paid his fine like an enlightened 
 citizen of a free republic. 
 
 The acts of his presidency are so recent, they have been the 
 theme of so much approbation and disapprobation by the people of 
 both hemispheres — so great has been the diversity of sentiment as 
 to their policy and wisdom, and coinciding as I do in their justice 
 and political efficacy, it does not become me to speak of them, on 
 the occasion of this solemn and interesting ceremony. 
 
 One merit you will all accord to him — a stern honesty of pur- 
 pose, and inexorable virtue in performing what he believed to be 
 his promise and duty, and for the public good. 
 
 The Union never had a warmer or more attached friend. In 
 this his bitterest enemy could not accuse him of the semblance of 
 hypocrisy. He never clothed his words in colours differing from 
 his thoughts ; and his breast, like the crystal, revealed the truth of 
 what emanated from his heart. 
 
 To the perpetuity of that Union he devoted his most active 
 
EULOGY. 117 
 
 energy, and for its preservation he would have sacrificed his best 
 friend, or died beneath the columns of the Capitol. 
 
 And now, my countrymen, let us follow him to the Hermitage, 
 around which he had garnered his hope, for a Christian and peace- 
 ful termination of his days. 
 
 Disrobed of official dignity ; destitute of power and place ; an 
 eminent private citizen, the acclamations of the people followed 
 him there, and filled him with gladness and joy. 
 
 His ambition was satisfied. His country had conferred upon 
 him her gratitude and her distinguished honours. He saw her at 
 peace with all the world, and her proud domain smiling in beauty, 
 as on the morning of the Creation. 
 
 With an humble and contrite heart, he prepared to meet his 
 God. He died! — died in the full confidence of mingling with the 
 spirits of the just made perfect, and in singing hallelujahs in thanks- 
 giving; to his Maker. 
 
 D D 
 
 The fallen brave is enshrined in the bosom of his mother earth. 
 His tranquil grave could not be dignified by sarcophagus or pyra- 
 mids, fit for the ephemeral greatness of kings and emperors. 
 
 He rests in sepulchral communion with his " true and honoura- 
 ble wife," who was as dear to him 
 
 3 
 
 as the ruddy drops, 
 
 That visited his sad heart," 
 
 at the period of their earthly separation. 
 
EULOGY 
 
 DELIVERED AT SAVANNAH, JULY 8, 1845, 
 
 BY THK 
 
 Hon. MATTHEW HALL McALLISTER. 
 
 There is a strong desire inherent in our nature to link the past 
 with the present, and thus perpetuate the relics of time. This feel- 
 ing, which impels us to rescue from oblivion the events and per- 
 sonages of by-gone days, has manifested itself in ways as various as 
 the genius of man. " It was a custom," we are told, " among the 
 primitive Romans to preserve in their houses the images of all the 
 illustrious men whom their families had produced." In the infancy 
 of art, these were of the rudest materials and form. But at each 
 successive funeral they were borne in procession, and served, rude 
 as they were, to gratify this feeling, and to incite the survivors to 
 emulate the deeds of the departed great. When the pencil and 
 the chisel had imparted life to the canvass, and form to the marble, 
 art was made subservient to the craving of man to redeem the me- 
 mories of the past. " The storied urn, the animated bust," the lofty 
 column, the magnificent mausoleum, became the mute interpreters 
 of the dead. At a later period that puny instrument, the pen, 
 more potent than the engines of Archimedes, traced the events of 
 fleeting time, fixed them on the glowing page, and man's desire 
 was gratified to an extent beyond what had been achieved by the 
 canvass, the marble, or any mere physical symbol. How much 
 stronger is this feeling when stimulated by the impulses of grati- 
 tude ? It is in obedience to this universal dictate of our nature, 
 strengthened by the most powerful motive which can operate upon 
 generous hearts, that we are this day assembled. Another link 
 which bound us to the past is broken. The last great relic of the 
 Revolution is no more. The sage of the Hermitage — the venerated 
 chief magistrate — the victorious general — the boy-hero of the Re- 
 volution, dwells no longer among men. Ours is the pleasing 
 mough melancholy task to brighten the chain which memory 
 
 (J 18) 
 
McAllister's eulogy. 119 
 
 forges — to connect him with the Present and the Future. Andrew 
 Jackson, a name pronounced by the wild Indian in his forest home 
 with fear, throughout the borders of our country with affection, and 
 which has been borne across the ocean on the wings of victory, is 
 no longer to be read in the register of living men. We have come 
 up from the ordinary avocations of life to this sacred temple, to re- 
 view his services, embalm his memory, and contemplate his cha- 
 racter. And if from that contemplation we can catch somewhat 
 of the spirit which once animated him, we shall retire from this 
 consecrated building better prepared for the discharge of our duties 
 as citizens. The ceremonies of this day will not be deemed an 
 empty pageant, but the performance of a high and sacred duty, by 
 the discharge of which, our love of country will become purified, 
 elevated, and increased ! 
 
 The first mention of the name of Andrew Jackson leads us to one 
 of the most eventful periods in the war of the Revolution. Carry 
 yourselves back in imagination to the year 1778. " Baffled in 
 their attempts upon the northern portion of the colonies, the British 
 essayed to conquer the more sparsely populated South." In prose- 
 cution of their plan, Savannah was taken, South Carolina invaded, 
 and Charleston, with the whole southern army, fell into the hands 
 of the enemy. Cornwallis, Rawdon, and Tarleton, roamed the Ca- 
 rolinas, and the subjugation of the South seemed at hand. Then 
 arose a band of patriots to shed glory on the arms of their country, 
 and fan the expiring flame of liberty in the hearts of their country- 
 men : — the Marions, the Sumters, the Pickens, the Davidsons, and 
 a host of others, who continued to breast the storm, and strike for 
 liberty against the exulting foe. Men, whose habitual companions 
 were danger and want, whose dwelling-places were the morasses 
 of the land, and whose hardy deeds never can be forgotten while 
 gratitude animates the American heart ! Such was the time, such 
 the men, beneath whose influence the infant mind and character of 
 Andrew Jackson received their first impression. They constituted 
 a mould in which to form a hero! At the period to which your 
 attention is directed, there lived, in the state of South Carolina, a 
 comparatively obscure widow, with her three sons, Robert, Hugh, 
 and Andrew Jackson. In the bosom of that lone widow there beat 
 a heart worthy of a Spartan mother. Ancient story informs us of 
 a matron of Sparta, who, when her son, about to depart for battle, 
 complained " that his sword was too short," replied, " Lengthen it 
 by a step, my son." Such was the mother of Andrew Jackson. 
 With her husband and two eldest sons, she had emigrated from Ire- 
 land to escape British oppression. Alas ! it reached her and hers 
 in the far off forest home they had sought. The indomitable yet 
 gentle spirit of this extraordinary woman, which found objects of 
 benevolence even in that Pandemonium — a British prison-ship in 
 
120 MONUMENT TO .TACKSON. 
 
 the harbour of Charleston, must have exercised no inconsidcrabli 
 influence upon the characters of her sons. These last, youthful ai 
 they were, she gave to her country. The first battle -field of An- 
 drew Jackson was one of the Revolution, fought on the tith August, 
 1780. Not fourteen years of age, under Davie, attached to the 
 command of Sumter, he made his first essay at arms, in an attack 
 on the British post of Hanging Rock, near the banks of the Cataw- 
 ba, in South Carolina. We next hear of the youthful soldier in an 
 affair which took place at the house of a Whig partisan by the name 
 of Land. Not apprehending an attack, the inmates of the dwelling 
 had lain upon their arms during the night, and with the exception 
 of a British deserter, fell asleep. A detachment of Tories had de- 
 termined to surprise the small party of Americans in the house of 
 Captain Land. In the execution of their plan, they assailed it in 
 two divisions, one advancing around the east end of the out-build- 
 ings to the east door, the other around the western end to the west 
 door. At this critical moment, when within a few rods, their ap- 
 proach was discovered by the wakeful soldier, who aroused the 
 youthful Jackson with the exclamation, "The Tories are upon us!" 
 The young hero rushed through the east door, placed himself by a 
 tree in front of it, hailed the advancing party, and receiving no re- 
 ply, fired. A volley was returned, which killed the soldier who 
 had followed, and was standing near him. At this instant, the 
 other division of Tories appeared, and mistaking, in the darkness 
 of the night, the discharge of their friends for that of a sallying 
 party from the house, opened a brisk fire upon them. Thus, both 
 parties were brought to a stand. Young Jackson having retired 
 into the mansion, aided its inmates in repelling the assailants, two 
 of whom were shot down by his side. The Tories continued the 
 conflict until, startled by the sound of a cavalry charge in the dis- 
 tance, they fled to the woods. Thus, by the coolness and intre- 
 pidity of the young soldier, the whole party were saved from mas- 
 sacre, for quarter was seldom given in the bloody conflicts between 
 Whig and Tory. Cn this occasion, qualities were exhibited which 
 shadowed forth the hero of maturer life. " Promptitude of design 
 and fearlessness in execution" were developed, and these " consti- 
 tute the perfection of the warrior." A short time after this exploit, 
 our young hero and his brother were thrown, by the chances of 
 war, into the hands of the enemy. During their captivity, an inci- 
 dent occurred which exhibits the high spirit of these gallant youths. 
 A British officer exacted from Andrew Jackson the performance of 
 a menial task : he refused, claiming to be treated as a prisoner of 
 war. Instead of admiring the manly spirit of the noble boy, the 
 ruffian struck at his head with his sword. The intended victim, 
 raising his arm, saved his life, but received a wound, the scar of 
 which he carried to his grave. Turning to his brother Robert, this 
 
MCALLISTER'S ECOLOGY. 121 
 
 disgrace to the name of a soldier, demanded of him the perform- 
 ance of the menial office ; meeting with a like refusal, he aimed a 
 furious blow at him, the effects of which proved fatal. Who can 
 sufficiently admire these lads, surrounded by armed foes, exhibiting 
 a spirit worthy of the sternest manhood? At length, by the inde- 
 fatigable efforts of their mother, an exchange of prisoners was 
 effected, and the liberation of her two sons accomplished. Alas ! 
 one of them she Avelcomed only to witness his death from the 
 wound he had received — the other, worn down by the sufferings of 
 his confinement, aggravated by disease, seemed received by the 
 special interposition of Providence for the fulfilment of his future 
 destiny. Before the close of the war, that exemplary woman died, 
 a victim to the sufferings from which her sex did not exempt her 
 in those trying times. Her two eldest sons fell, one on the field of 
 battle, the other by the blow of an assassin, wearing the uniform of 
 a British officer, and Andrew Jackson alone survived the horrors 
 of the Revolution. Think you there was required of him the oath 
 imposed on the youthful Hannibal of undying hostility to the mo- 
 dern Rome? No! In the bosom of that boy there was a spark 
 which future events fanned into a flame, by the light of which 
 Britain read in legible characters the name of Andrew Jackson ! — a 
 name endeared to Americans by the sufferings of the boy of the Revo- 
 lution, consecrated in their affections by the triumphs of the man of 
 maturer life. The Revolution was at an end. The eagle of America 
 plumed his wing for a lofty flight ! The sable banners of war were 
 furled, and peace spread her golden wings over our exhausted but 
 redeemed country. The boy has grown into manhood, but in the 
 avocations to which his attention was directed, we shall find the 
 seed, planted in his breast by the iron hand of the Revolution, ma- 
 tured into fruit by his own indomitable will and lofty courage.* 
 In 1787, having been admitted to the practice of the law in the 
 state of North Carolina, he was, at the early age of twenty-one, 
 appointed solicitor of the Western District, embracing within its 
 limits the present state of Tennessee. In the following year, he 
 moved to the West, and established his residence at Jonesboro, 
 separated by a wilderness of two hundred miles from the settle- 
 ments on the Cumberland. The selection of such a home, bespeaks 
 the adventurous spirit of the man. Surrounded by the hardships 
 of a forest life, by savages more ferocious than the beasts that roam- 
 ed around, danger became his household companion. The stirring 
 incidents of his life which intervened between his settlement in 
 Tennessee and her admission into the Union, are too minute and 
 numerous to find a place in this hasty sketch. They border on the 
 
 * The incidents in the early life of Jackson are taken from Kendall's "Life 
 of Jackson." 
 11 
 
122 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 romantic, and serve to illustrate the aphorism, that " truth is oft 
 times stranger than fiction." Although engaged in the practice of 
 his profession, and at the same time the prosecuting officer for the 
 government, he was not the man to see his neighbours butchered 
 without discrimination of age or sex, and not strike many blows in 
 their defence. His gallantry in various expeditions against the In- 
 dians, in which he acted as a volunteer, acquired for him among that 
 people the names of the "Sharp Knife" and the "Pointed Arrow." 
 From the year 1795 is to be dated the entry of Andrew Jackson 
 into public life, for in that year he became a member of the con- 
 vention charged with the duty of preparing a constitution for the 
 new state of Tennessee. On the 1st of June, 1796, she was ad- 
 mitted into the Union, and he became her first representative in 
 the national councils. On the 22d of November, 1797, he took 
 his seat in the Senate of the United States, to which body he had 
 been elected, and arrayed himself in the ranks of the republican 
 party. The Sedition act was introduced into the Senate by Mr. 
 Lloyd of Maryland, in June, 1798, and passed into a law on the 
 4th of July following, during which interval General Jackson was 
 absent at home on urgent business. His name therefore does not 
 appear on the journals of the senate. "On the Alien law, how- 
 ever, he was with the minority and on the side of the republicans." 
 He soon resigned his seat, finding little could be effected against 
 the measures of the federalists, constituting, as they did at the time, 
 a majority in that body. But his services were too important to 
 be lost, and he was appointed to preside over the Supreme Court 
 of law and equity in the state of Tennessee. An allusion to one 
 or two incidents which marked the rough times in which he was 
 called to the administration of the public justice, may not be inap- 
 propriate. They will give the " form and pressure" of those times, 
 and serve to illustrate the identity of the man of thirty with the 
 boy of the Revolution. An individual had been indicted and was 
 for trial. He was in the immediate vicinity of the court house, 
 but such was the strength and ferocity of the man, that the sheriff, 
 not daring to approach him, made a return " that Russell Bean will 
 not be taken." "He must be taken," said the judge, "and if 
 necessary you must summon the body of the county to your aid." 
 The officer retired, awaited the adjournment of the court, and sum- 
 moned the judges themselves. Judge Jackson replied, "Yes, sir, I 
 will attend you, and see that you do your duty." Learning that 
 Bean was armed, he requested a loaded pistol which was placed in 
 his hand. He then said to the sheriff, "Advance and arrest him, I 
 will protect you from harm." Bean, armed with a dirk and brace 
 of pistols, assumed an attitude of defiance and desperation. But as 
 the judge advancecf upon him, he began to retreat. "Stop and 
 obey the law," cried the intrepid magistrate. The desperate man 
 
McAllister's eulogy. 123 
 
 paused, threw down his weapons, and exclaimed, " I will surrender 
 to you, sir, but to no one else!" 
 
 On another occasion, in consequence of his having exposed to 
 the general government extensive land frauds perpetrated in Ten- 
 nessee, Judge Jackson had concentrated upon himself the hostility 
 of a powerful and influential body of men implicated in those frauds. 
 To such height had their enmity risen, that an attempt was made 
 to mob him on his way to hold a court. Intelligence of the medi- 
 tated assault had the effect simply of speeding his movements to the 
 scene of contemplated outrage. On his arrival, labouring under 
 severe indisposition, he sought the retirement of his chamber. A 
 friend called, and informing him that a regiment of men, headed 
 by a Colonel Harrison, had collected in front of the house with a 
 view to carry their threat into execution, advised him to secure his 
 door. Judge Jackson immediately threw it open and exclaimed, 
 " Give my compliments to Colonel Harrison, and tell him that my 
 door is open to receive him and his regiment when they choose to 
 wait upon me, and I hope that the chivalry of the colonel will in- 
 duce him to lead, not follow his men." It is needless to add, that 
 the fury of the mob quailed before the intrepidity of the man. 
 
 In 1803, Judge Jackson received the commission of major-ge- 
 neral in the militia of Tennessee. In the following year, he re- 
 signed his judicial office, and devoted himself to agricultural pur- 
 suits, in the expectation of passing the remainder of his days in the 
 seclusion of private life. But 
 
 "There's a Divinity that shapes our ends, 
 Rough-hew them how we will." 
 
 A.t the period when General Jackson supposed his public life at 
 its close, its most stirring incidents remained to be developed. 
 
 We now approach the war of 1812. On the 12th of June of 
 that year, the declaration of war was made by the United States 
 against Great Britain. The boy-hero of the Revolution, thedestined 
 avenger of the wrongs of his ancestors in Ireland, of the injuries of 
 his family in this country, aroused himself from his repose to re- 
 spond to that country's call. On the 25th of June, thirteen days 
 after that declaration, he tendered through the executive of Ten- 
 nessee to the general government, his services with those of 2500 
 volunteers. On the 12th of July following, the secretary of war, 
 in a letter of acceptance, writes—" The tender of service by Ge- 
 neral Jackson and those under his command, is received by the 
 president with peculiar satisfaction, and in accepting their services, 
 the president cannot withhold an expression of his admiration of 
 the zeal and ardour by which they are animated." The governor 
 of Tennessee, while conveying to General Jackson the acceptance 
 >f his services bv the president, tenders his thanks to him for the 
 
124 MwraacrasT to jackson. 
 
 haiwTOr done his state by the prompt manner in which those ser- 
 vices had been proffered. On the 23d of November in the same 
 
 Jtr, orders were received to rendezvous in the vicinity of Nat- 
 chi'Z, to co-operate, as it was supposed, with General Wilkinson, 
 then at New Orleans. On the 4th of January, 1813, General Jack- 
 sc:i writes to the secretary of war, " I have the pleasure to inform 
 vou that I am now at the head of 2,070 volunteers, the choicest of 
 our citizens, who go at the call of their country to execute the will 
 of the government, who have no constitutional scruples, and if the 
 government order, will rejoice at the opportunity of placing the 
 American eagle on the ramparts of Mobile, Pensacola and St. 
 Augustine, thus effectually banishing from the southern coast all 
 British influence." In obedience to orders the army commenced 
 its march, and after accomplishing a voyage of one thousand miles, 
 exposed to unusual hardships, owing to the inclemency of the sea- 
 son, arrived at the place of appointed rendezvous. The spirit of 
 the general breathes in his official communications. To General 
 Wilkinson he writes : " Should the safety of this lower country 
 admit, and the government so order, I would with pleasure march 
 to the lines of Canada, and there offer my feeble aid to the arms of 
 our country, and endeavour to wipe off the stain on our military cha- 
 racter occasioned by our recent disasters since the declaration of 
 war." 
 
 Such was the noble spirit by which the commander and his men 
 were animated, when an order was received from the secretary of 
 war, directing the former to disband the latter, and deliver all arti- 
 cles of public property into the possession of Major-General Wilk- 
 inson. We pause not to inquire into the cause of this extraordinary 
 procedure, nor to ascertain the truth of the assertion current at the 
 time, that it arose out of a combination between the secretary of 
 war and General Wilkinson, having for its object, the disbanding 
 of a large body of men at a distance from their homes, under cir- 
 cumstances of necessity, which would compel them to enlist into 
 the army at New Orleans. It is with the conduct of the com- 
 manding general we have exclusively to deal ; and it is not to be 
 denied, that he was placed in circumstances which would have 
 crushed any man of ordinary nerve. The government expected 
 compliance with its order. General Wilkinson awaited it — his 
 own officers advised it. But what did General Jackson? A man 
 of few words, he spoke by action, for 
 
 "Conduct hath the loudest tongue, 
 
 In the Deed, 
 
 The unequivocal, authentic deed, 
 
 We find sound argument, we rend the heart." 
 
 fie promptly determined to disobey the order. At the time it 
 reached his camp, 130 of his men were on the sick list, and by far 
 
EtfLOGY. 125 
 
 the greater number unable to defray the expenses of their return. 
 His command was composed of young men whom he had received 
 at the hands of their parents, with the promise reiterated in public 
 orders before his march, " that he would act the part of a father to 
 them." He was not the man to falsify his word, and disband them 
 a thousand miles from their homes without the means of return. 
 He disobeyed the order, threatened with punishment a recruiting 
 oihcer found hanging around his encampment — borrowed money 
 on his private credit — marched his men to their homes, and there 
 disbanded them. The noble daring of this act was sustained by its 
 justice, and within a few months received the approval of the 
 secretary of war himself. One more evidence of his determined 
 spirit, and we have done with this portion of his life. On his re- 
 turn march, though keenly alive to the ungenerous treatment of the 
 government, such was his ardour to serve his country, he wrote to 
 the secretary of war, "Should government have any orders to 
 execute at Maiden, or its vicinity, about the 30th proximo, I shall 
 be happy to execute them, at the head of my detachment, provided 
 I can be informed of their wishes about the 25th instant, or before 
 I am discharged. My force can be augmented if necessary. I 
 have a few standards wearing the American eagle, that I should be 
 happy to place on the ramparts of Maiden." 
 
 A few months only had elapsed after the disbanding of the volun- 
 teers by General Jackson, when there burst upon the frontiers of 
 the southern states the darkest war-cloud that had ever gathered 
 upon their horizon. The machinations of Tecumseh and his brother, 
 the Prophet, aided by British intrigue, had spread general dissatis- 
 faction among the Indians. Hostile incursions mere made into the 
 neighbouring states, and indiscriminate slaughter marked their 
 bloody path. Then came the frightful massacre at Fort Minis, in 
 which 300 men, women and children were butchered, under cir- 
 cumstances of revolting ferocity, and excited the horror, the fears, 
 and finally the vengeance of the states. Upon General Jackson 
 the eyes of Tennessee were turned. Again that brave warrior ap- 
 pealed to his volunteers, and again they responded to his call. 
 Labouring under indisposition, he was unable to meet his army on 
 the day appointed for rendezvous, and therefore caused an address 
 to be read to them. The sentiments it breathes give it a claim to 
 our attention. " Our borders," said he, « must no longer be dis- 
 turbed with the war-whoop of these savages or the cries of their 
 suffering victims. The torch that has been lighted up must be 
 made to blaze in the heart of their own country. But how shall 
 a war so Ions; forborne, and so loudly called for by retributive 
 justice, be waged? Shall we imitate the example of our enemies 
 in the disorder of their movements and the savageness of their dis- 
 position ! Is it worthy of th" character of American soldiers who 
 II* 
 
126 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 take up arms to redress the wrongs of an injured country, to as- 
 sume no better mode than that furnished by barbarians'? No! fel- 
 low-soldiers, great as are the grievances which have called us from 
 our homes, we must not permit disorderly passions to tarnish the 
 reputation we will carry with us. We must and will be victori- 
 ous, but we must conquer as men who owe nothing to chance ; and 
 who in the midst of victory can still be mindful of what is due to 
 humanity." 
 
 Animated by such feelings, the general advanced with his com- 
 mand into the fastnesses of the Creek country. Without supplies, 
 with an army goaded to insubordination by want, he fought the 
 battles of Talladega, Emuckfaw, Enotochopco, and the bloody and 
 decisive conflict of the Horseshoe. By personal intervention, he 
 suppressed four several mutinies to which his men had been driven 
 by famine, annihilated the power of the savages, and in a few 
 months conquered peace for his country and safety for her fron- 
 tiers. And all this was done while labouring under physical de- 
 bility, which at times incapacitated him from sitting upright upon 
 his horse. There is one within the sound of my voice, who served 
 under General Jackson during the latter part of this expedition. 
 He has, when speaking of its events, stated, that such was the 
 weakness of the general, that his body was so bent at times, his 
 head rested on the neck of his horse for support. " But," said my 
 informer, " let the whoop of an Indian or the crack of a rifle be 
 heard, his frame became so erect, and his eye so full of fire, that 
 one ignorant of the fact, could not have believed that an instant 
 before, the former had been prostrated by debility, and the latter 
 dimmed by disease." 
 
 In allusion to this campaign, an English writer, preliminary to 
 a narration of it, declares, " I must now desire the English reader 
 to prepare himself for a series of actions wholly incredible, were 
 they not attested by piles of official documents, the authenticity of 
 which no man can doubt." * " In the -wonder- 
 
 ful details I am about to lay before the reader, it will be seen that 
 not another man that we have ever heard of, was capable of per- 
 forming this duty with success, and when the reader has gone 
 through these details, and has afterwards witnessed the glorious de- 
 feat of New Orleans, he will recur to this Indian campaign as the 
 most glorious exploit of this wonderful man." The character of 
 Andrew Jackson, as gathered from his conduct as a military man 
 in his war against the savages, exhibits an inflexibility of purpose 
 which difficulties only served to develope more fully. When duty 
 pointed out a course, he swerved neither to the right hand nor to the 
 left. He gave 
 
 " Prayer to the windG, and caution to the waves." 
 
MCALLISTER'S EULOGY. 127 
 
 Obstacles deterred him not — on the contrary his resolution, " like 
 the great propelling power of the present day, was pent up within 
 the iron of his bosom, but to carry him on with fiercer determina- 
 tion," and greater speed to the end desired. Up to the period of 
 which we are speaking, General Jackson had served in the militia 
 of his state. Having literally fought himself into the confidence 
 of the administration and the country, in May, 1814, he was ap- 
 pointed a major-general in the service of the United States, and 
 charged with the protection of the coast near the mouths of the 
 Mississippi. His attention was first directed to Pensacola, in the 
 then Spanish territory. From that fortress he was convinced the 
 Indians received constant supplies of ammunition and arms, and 
 over its governor, British influence exercised entire control. The 
 standards of Spain and England floated side by side from its ram- 
 parts. From that post, Colonel Nichols, a British officer, had dated 
 his inflammatory proclamation to the people of Louisiana and Ken- 
 tucky. From it, a hostile expedition had been fitted out against 
 Fort Bower, on the Mobile, and General Jackson was certain if he 
 left Pensacola under British ascendency, incursions would be made 
 against the settlements on the Mobile, and ultimately all intercourse 
 between New Orleans and the interior be cut off. 
 
 Spain, a neutral power, either gave aid to our enemy, and should 
 herself be treated as one, or she was too weak to prevent the use 
 of her territory by our enemy, in which event she could not justly 
 complain if the injured nation claimed to hold that territory until 
 she possessed the power to enforce its neutrality. Under the pres- 
 sure of these considerations, and the eminent peril of the time, in 
 the absence of instructions from his government, General Jackson 
 "took the responsibility upon himself," entered the Spanish terri- 
 tory, and by a visit to Pensacola, effectually arrested all hostile 
 operations from that quarter. Having performed this service to his 
 country, the indomitable soldier directed his steps to a new theatre 
 of glory, and arrived on the first of December, 1814, at New Or- 
 leans, with a determination to defend the country successfully, or, 
 in his own language to Governor Claiborne, " to die in the last 
 ditch /-' The period of which we speak was most eventful. The 
 mighty struggle that had convulsed Europe was at the end. The 
 Child of Destiny, the Terror of Legitimists had become the Exile 
 of Elba, and the untrammelled energies, the great resources of Bri- 
 tain could now be concentrated for the annihilation of our country. 
 Timid men feared, bold men wavered, and all felt that a crisis was 
 at hand. The metropolis of the United States had been a short 
 time before sacked, under circumstances which would have done 
 honour to an Alaric or an Attila. The horrors of Hampton and 
 Havre de Grace had exhibited the ruthless spirit by which the 
 enemy was animated. On New Orleans the British government 
 
128 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 determined the first great blow should fall. Alison, in his "His 
 tory of Europe," observes : " This rising town, which then num 
 bered 17,000 inhabitants, was not a place of warlike preparations ; 
 but it was the great emporium of the cotton trade of the southern 
 states, and it was supposed, not without reason, that the capture of 
 a city which commanded the whole navigation of the Mississippi, 
 would prove the most sensible blow to the resources of the Ameri- 
 can government, as well as furnish a rich booty to the captors." 
 To inflict that blow, and secure that booty, a powerful armament 
 was fitted out under the command of the most accomplished leaders 
 of Britain. With 14,000 men, the veterans of Wellington, the in- 
 vincibles of the Peninsula — with every engine of destruction the 
 art of modern warfare could invent, it hovered on the coast, pre- 
 pared to launch its thunders upon the devoted city ! But Andrew 
 Jackson was the man whom the Supreme Disposer of events had 
 interposed between his country and impending peril ! 
 
 " Such men are raised lo station and command, 
 When Providence means mercy to a land, 
 He speaks, and they appear; to him they owe 
 Skill to direct, and strength to strike the blow; 
 To manage with address, to seize with power 
 The crisis of a dark decisive hour." 
 
 It was not from the formidable force and vindictive spirit of the 
 invaders that General Jackson had most to apprehend. There 
 were circumstances which imparted perils the most imminent to 
 the difficulties of his position. The city, whose defence was com- 
 mitted to his charge, contained a mixed population of French, 
 Spaniards, and discontented Creoles. Having been recently an- 
 nexed to the United States, her people had not become nationalized. 
 The wealthy looked to their property, and thought to save it by 
 capitulation — the masses were little attached to the new institu- 
 tions, and most believed, that the soldier who had withstood the 
 rifles of the Indians would fall before the thunders of the British 
 ordnance ! The troops of the invader came fresh from the Penin- 
 sula war, flushed with victory, and the question would rise unbid- 
 den even to the patriot's lips. " Can militia with the Indian war- 
 rior at their head, stand before the well-appointed veterans of Eng- 
 land under the lead of her most accomplished commanders ?" So 
 rife was the spirit of disaffection, that Governor Claiborne wrote to 
 General Jackson — " Enemies of the country may blame your prompt 
 and energetic measures, but in the person of every patriot you will 
 find a supporter. I think with you, our country is filled with 
 ' traitors and spies? " In despite of all precautions, the general 
 found that intelligence of his every movement was conveyed to the 
 enemy. It was in truth " a dark decisive hour" in which he was 
 called to strike for his country. But his ability proved equal to 
 
McAllister's eulogy. 129 
 
 the occasion, and his courage mounted with every emergency. 
 His capacity, like the fairy tent, seemed to enlarge so as to contain 
 all it was necessary to comprehend. His first effort was to quell 
 treason at home. He declared martial law. His next, to break 
 the charms of British invincibility. This he effected by his cele- 
 brated attack on the night of the 23d of December, 1814. A 
 second battle, fought on the 28th of the same month, gave assur- 
 ance to hope, and animated anew the courage of his men. But it 
 was reserved for the ever memorable 8th of January, to fill the 
 measure of Jackson's honour, and his country's glory. Nine thou- 
 sand veterans with the appalling battle-cry of " Beauty and Booty," 
 advanced upon the American lines! The story of that day is 
 known to the world. The sun which dawned upon it shed its set- 
 ting rays on a city saved from plunder — rescued from pollution ! 
 The " Historic Muse," proud of the deeds and name of the patriot de- 
 fender, "guarding and immortalizing her treasure" shall march 
 down the course of time, imparting it to generations yet unborn ! 
 
 We pass over the campaign of General Jackson in 1817—18 
 against the Seminoles, enough having been said to enable us to form 
 some estimate of the debt of gratitude due for his services in the 
 field, and at the same time evince the genius and character of the 
 man. The salient points in his character are numerous. In the 
 brief analysis we propose to give of it, we shall direct your atten- 
 tion to three of the most commanding. The events of his military 
 career develope — enthusiasm, promptitude in action, and inflexi- 
 bility of purpose. The ardour with which, within thirteen days 
 after the declaration of war, he sought to serve his country — the 
 alacrity with which he responded to the call of his state when the 
 rifle and tomahawk had desolated the frontiers of the South — the 
 zeal with which he repeatedly proffered his services, and the eager- 
 ness he manifested to march at the head of his detachment from the 
 banks of the Mississippi to those of the Detroit, to plant the Ameri- 
 can standard on the ramparts of Maiden — the indomitable spirit 
 which animated him in his Indian campaigns, though prostrated by 
 physical debility, all attest the enthusiasm of the soldier, the inex- 
 tinguishable ardour of the man ! 
 
 Promptitude in action was no less developed in his military con- 
 duct. Whether we view in him the boy of the Revolution, aroused 
 from his midnight slumber, rushing to the post of danger, challeng- 
 ing and firing upon the advancing foe — whether we accompany 
 him in his Indian expedition, quelling mutinies, following the sav- 
 ages through an inhospitable wilderness, with conflict after conflict, 
 until their power was annihilated in the decisive battle of the 
 Horseshoe — or, whether we see him at New Orleans adopting those 
 " prompt and energetic measures," as they were termed by Go- 
 vernor Claiborne, which quelled treason at home, and beat back 
 
130 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 the invaders from abroad, we find a promptitude and decision in 
 action unsurpassed in military annals. But it is the inflexibility of 
 purpose, the indomitable will, which beings out in bold relief the 
 character of this wonderful man. Courage of the loftiest kind was 
 his. We speak not of that mere insensibility to danger which be- 
 longs to the brute as well as the man, and is the result of mere 
 physical organization ; but of that noble faculty of the mind which, 
 poising itself on the emergency of the moment, fearless of conse- 
 quences, uninfluenced by clamour, moves steadily onward to the 
 accomplishment of its purpose. This it is which places the name 
 of Andrew Jackson high on the scroll of fame, constituting; him not 
 only the successful warrior, but entitling him to the name of great! 
 His refusal to disband his men in obedience to the order of govern- 
 ment, when honour, policy, and humanity forbade compliance — 
 his invasion of the Spanish territory when his country's peril de- 
 manded he " should take the responsibility upon himself" — his 
 declaration of martial law amid the disaffected population of New 
 Orleans, with the certainty that success alone could still the clam- 
 our of the " fireside patriots" of his country — all proclaim him a 
 man above his fellows, sent by heaven to save that country! 
 Around the grave of such a warrior his countrymen will gather 
 without distinction of party, and while they drop the tributary tear, 
 exclaim — " Beneath this turf there sleeps a hero !" 
 
 " Let laurels, drenched in pure Parnassian dews, 
 Reward his memory, dear to every muse, 
 Who, with a courage of unshaken root. 
 In honour's field advancing his firm foot, 
 Plants it upon the line that Justice draws, 
 And will prevail, or perish in her cause." 
 
 Turn we now from the blood-stained records of national strife, 
 to peruse the volume of civil life. The victorious general retires 
 to his farm ; but the grateful people of Tennessee again call him to 
 the Senate of the United States. In 1824, a majority of the nation 
 expressed a wish through the electoral colleges to elevate him to 
 the exalted station of the presidency, a station, to use his own lan- 
 guage, " neither to be sought nor avoided." That wish, however, 
 was frustrated by causes to which we forbear allusion, and another 
 was placed in the presidential chair. At the next election the 
 people spoke in a manner not to be misunderstood, and by a vote 
 in the colleges of 178 to 83, Andrew Jackson was called to preside 
 over the country whose armies he had led to victory. His ad- 
 ministration met with the approbation of the nation, and he was 
 enthusiastically re-elected, receiving 219 out of the 261 electoral 
 votes. His government partook of the characteristics of the man. 
 Vigour was impressed upon its councils. France yielded her re- 
 luctant treasure to our just demands, and the attitude of our coun- 
 
McAllister's eulogy. 131 
 
 try commanded the respect of foreign nations. His policy at home 
 seemed to have for its objects to confine the action of the federal 
 government within the limits prescribed by the constitution, and to 
 prevent the aggregation of the moneyed interests in the few. He 
 knew that " Gold is the architect of power," and dreaded its influence 
 upon the characters of his countrymen, and with it that baneful 
 passion for gain which degrades a nation and converts freemen into 
 speculators. His opposition to the incorporation of the moneyed 
 power, raised up enemies more formidable than the foreign foe he 
 had so gloriously vanquished. Amid the strife of contending par- 
 ties, while many yielded and all wavered, he stood himself the bul- 
 wark of what he deemed the interests of the people against the 
 gigantic power of monopoly ! 
 
 " Et cuncta terrarum subacta 
 PraHer atrocem animum Catonis." 
 
 We desire not on an occasion like the present, to discuss parties 
 or their measures. We would not strike one discordant note in 
 the general dirge which proclaims a patriot gone. To say that 
 Andrew Jackson had faults, is simply to say that he was a man. 
 Those faults never deprived him of the confidence of the people. 
 He retired from the helm of state followed by the affections and 
 admiration of a vast majority of the nation. So intimately was 
 patriotism interwoven with the whole texture of the man, that 
 neither age nor approaching death could rend it from its fabric, 
 and from his seclusion his voice was raised in accents of warning 
 to his beloved country. On one great question which has recently 
 agitated the national councils, it was heard, and as of old, impressed 
 itself upon the hearts of the people. When our institutions shall 
 have been extended, and the American eagle spread his pinions 
 over a territory, on which transatlantic policy would fain have 
 established its domination : to the patriot sage of the Hermitage 
 will be due in part, the merit of the great political achievement. 
 
 Hitherto the conquests of this great man had been confined to 
 the enemies of his country. In his retirement he engages a more 
 stubborn foe, and acquires his most glorious victory. 
 
 " His warfare is within. There unfaiigued 
 His fervent spirit labours. There he fights, 
 And there obtains fresh triumphs o'er himself, 
 And never withering wreaths, compared with which 
 The laurels that a Cssar reaps are weeds." 
 
 Having by the glorious example of his life taught his country- 
 men how to live, it was reserved for this extraordinary man by the 
 instructive lesson of his death, to teach them how to die. The 
 noble Roman, when death became inevitable, drew his robe around 
 him to die with decency — the aged patriot clothed himself in the 
 
132 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 garment of faith to die with a Christian's hope. Fear found no 
 place in the bosom of that stern old man. Hypocrisy was alien 
 from his nature. This offering of himself, therefore, was the tri- 
 bute of the heart paid by the creature to his Creator. That spirit 
 which had never quailed in the presence of man, became broken 
 and contrite before the Father of Spirits ! 
 
 While the perusal of his life inculcates our duty to our country, 
 the teachings of his dying hour appeal to us with urgent power. 
 " Call no man happy until you know the nature of his death," 
 was the saying of the Athenian sage. Standing by the grave of 
 him whom we deplore, we can say, with confidence, his life was 
 glorious, his death was happy. Such was he, the warrior, the 
 statesman, and the patriot, who has obeyed nature's last great in- 
 exorable mandate. The ceremonies of this day — the badges of 
 mourning by which we are surrounded — the cypress wreath we 
 have woven to deck his tomb, attest our sorrow. But ours is but a 
 single note in the national requiem. The whole country will 
 cherish him dead who, living, loved her with his heart's devotion. 
 His memory will be enshrined, and when the strifes, the passions, 
 and the men of the present day shall have passed away, the name, 
 services, and character of Andrew Jackson, shall be viewed by 
 those who come after us, as land-marks in the waste of the past to 
 connect it with their love, gratitude, and admiration ! 
 
EULOGY 
 
 DELIVERED AT INDIANAPOLIS, JUNE 28, 1845, 
 
 BY 
 
 A. F. MORRISON, Esq. 
 
 Fellow-Citizens : — An interesting and solemn event has caused 
 this vast multitude to assemble. The unerring shaft of death, the 
 conqueror of conquerors, has, at length, reached the heart of 
 Andrew Jackson, and a nation mourns the loss of a cherished and 
 favourite son. His eventful and valuable life was brought to a 
 close at the Hermitage, near Nashville, Tennessee, on Sunday even- 
 ing, the 8th day of June instant, at b* o'clock. He expired in the 
 full possession of his senses, surrounded b)' his friends, expressing 
 the highest confidence in a happy immortality. On Tuesday even- 
 ing, after appropriate funeral services were performed, his mortal 
 remains were deposited in the vault prepared for his resting-place, 
 by the side of the wife of his bosom, whom he most affectionately 
 loved. 
 
 Thus has calmly and peacefully terminated the mortal existence 
 of a great, a good, and a wonderful man. He was born in the 
 Waxhaw settlement, in South Carolina, on the loth day of March, 
 1767, and at the day of his decease was seventy-eight years, two 
 months, and twenty-four days old. 
 
 Well might the most competent and the most learned shrink 
 from the task of attempting to prepare a eulogy upon the life and 
 character of " the man of the Hermitage." No new field is left to 
 be explored, no new compliment can be framed, no new honour 
 can, at this day, be added to the chaplet which adorns his brow. 
 Each page of the history of his country is replete with commenda- 
 tions of his character, and abounds with the records of his fame. 
 For nearly three-fourths of a century, Andrew Jackson has enacted 
 a prominent part on the theatre of life, and for many years has 
 stood as a connecting link between the past and the present. His 
 mighty name has had a talismanic effect upon the feelings of his 
 12 033) 
 
134 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 countrymen. His mighty deeds have filled with wonder and ad- 
 miration the inhabitants of America and of Europe. What new 
 theme can now be touched which shall save from the charge of 
 dull monotony, the effort of him who shall attempt to pass a pane- 
 gyric upon the name and fame of the illustrious Jackson ? While 
 such might be the cold reflections of considerate philosophy, there 
 is yet a motive power of action ; there is a spring which never Iras 
 failed, which never will fail, to pour forth its gushing fountains 
 when the story of the renowned Jackson is repeated. That spring 
 and fountain is in the swelling hearts and breasts of every true son 
 of America, and of every patriot in the land. If there be one 
 amonsr the aged men who hear me, if there be those amon"- the 
 youth who surround me, who have not carefully read and reflected 
 upon the whole history of this great man, let the old atone for such 
 an ungrateful omission and the young speedily hasten to perform 
 their duty, and let all who love the man and his memory, bear 
 with my short effort to repeat some of the claims upon our consi- 
 deration. 
 
 The early history of Andrew Jackson is replete with interest. 
 Few men, in any age of the world, were more severely inducted 
 into active life, and few ever arose to marked distinction from a 
 more humble origin. 
 
 His father, although of Scotch descent, was an emigrant from 
 Ireland, which country he left in consequence of the burthens and 
 oppressions of the British government, and settled in South Caro- 
 lina, about nine years previous to thp commencement of the Revo- 
 lutionary war, where he lived only until about the time of the 
 birth of his son, Andrew, of whom we now speak, so that his gifted 
 historian has well remarked of General Jackson, that he was almost 
 born an orphan, and won his way "from the plough to the presi- 
 dency." 
 
 The place of his residence was the seat of continual hostilities 
 between the South Carolina settlers and the marauding British 
 armies. An unmitigated border warfare distressed the country, and 
 drew into its vortex, either as whig or tory, nearly everv indivi- 
 dual capable of bearing arms. The unwise and severe course of 
 the British commanders, soon aroused the latent enmity of the three 
 patriot brothers composing the whole force of the Jackson family, 
 and they stood arrayed against all who opposed the cause of the 
 colonies. Before young Andrew had attained his fourteenth year, 
 we find him even at that tender age, bearing arms at the attack by 
 Sumter upon Hanging Rock, and nobly doing duty as a soldier. 
 His elder brother sacrificed his life in the exposure incident to the 
 cause of the whigs : Andrew and his remaining brother were 
 sought out and captured, and carried as British prisoners to Cam- 
 den, where they were rigorously treated and abused. They were 
 
»,J 
 
 MORRISON S EULOGY. 
 
 135 
 
 compelled to suffer the worst of hardships and privations, such as 
 so signally disgraced the conduct of British officers to American 
 prisoners. It was during this captivity that General Jackson 
 proudly refused to perform menial services for a British officer, and 
 for which refusal he was smitten with a sword, and carried the 
 scar to his grave. His brother, also, was required to do the same 
 service, and refusing, the same sword inflicted a wound upon his 
 head which subsequently caused his death. In all of the various 
 incidents of this protracted warfare, which drew forth the abilities 
 and patriotic devotion of Sumter, Greene, Marion, Davie, and 
 others, on the side of the Americans, and the skill, courage, and 
 cruelty of Cornwallis, Tarleton, and Rawdon, as British leaders, 
 young Jackson was ever active and vigilant. His peculiar cool- 
 ness and decision, when attacked at Land's house, was another in- 
 stance of his indomitable courage and disregard of personal safety. 
 There, by his individual tact and bravery, he saved his companions 
 in arms, and astonished his confederates by his undaunted prowess. 
 Shortly after his release from Camden, his excellent mother sick- 
 ened and died, while engaged in the service of her country, in en- 
 deavouring to procure the release of some of his friends and rela- 
 tives who were also subjected to British cruelty and confinement. 
 
 In a short time after these events, the war in the South was 
 concluded, and Andrew Jackson turned his attention to the study 
 of the law, at Salisbury, North Carolina, under the instruction of 
 Spruce McCay, Esq., a distinguished lawyer and judge. He was 
 then between 17 and 18 years of age. He finished his studies 
 under Colonel Stokes, and in about two years was licensed as a 
 practitioner. He soon afterwards, without solicitation on his part, 
 was appointed solicitor for the Western District of North Carolina, 
 which is the present state of Tennessee. 
 
 On his arrival at his western home he soon became the favourite 
 of the people; not, however, without passing through severe hard- 
 ships, and encountering strong and vindictive opposition ; but by 
 his unremitted industry and daring intrepidity he succeeded in all 
 his undertakings, and was beloved by his friends. Although he 
 was then but 21 years old, he applied himself constantly to the 
 duties of his office, and traversed the forests of the new world, 
 armed at all times for his defence, depending upon his own ener- 
 gies to protect him from the dangers of the savage, and the difficul- 
 ties of an unsettled country. In this vocation he made no less 
 than twenty-two journeys on horseback, armed, and carrying his 
 own provisions, from the Cumberland, near where Nashville now 
 stands, to Jonesborough, a distance of full two hundred miles, liter- 
 ally surrounded with hostile Indians. General Jackson shortly 
 afterwards married and settled down, devoting himself assiduously 
 to the practice of the law. 
 
136 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 The people of Tennessee having determined to form a state go- 
 vernment, a convention was called for the purpose of preparing a 
 constitution, and Andrew Jackson was chosen a delegate to the 
 convention. His republican sentiments were conspicuously incor- 
 porated into the provisions of the instrument, as well as into the 
 bill of rights which prefaced it, and presented with great clearness 
 the political opinions of bis youth, which so eminently distinguished 
 his more mature years. 
 
 The state of Tennessee was admitted into tbe Union on the 1st 
 of June, 1796, and General Jackson was elected as her first repre- 
 sentative in Congress by general acclamation of the people, and 
 took his seat on the 5th of December, 1796, where he served only 
 one session. He was then without his solicitation, elected a sena- 
 tor in Congress, and took his seat as such, on the 22d day of June, 
 1797. Not coinciding with the then existing; administration of the 
 government, he only served one session as senator, resigned his 
 place, went home, and aided with all his abilities the election of 
 Mr. Jefferson to the presidency. The legislature of Tennessee 
 soon afterwards elected him a judge of the Supreme Court, which 
 office he held until 1804, when, much against the wishes of the 
 people and of his friends, he resigned the duties of that office, and 
 again became a private citizen. 
 
 From this period, with but temporary exceptions, General Jack- 
 son remained at home, near the spot where the Hermitage stands, 
 engaged with his own hands in the pursuits of a farmer and planter, 
 and with diligent attention, reaped the rich rewards of bis care 
 and industry. 
 
 The state had conferred upon him her highest civil and military 
 honours, and he then occupied the rank of major-general of militia. 
 His undoubted personal courage, his enterprising character, and his 
 reputation as an expert manager of Indian difficulties, all conspired 
 to make him the favourite of the Tennesseeans, and gave him an 
 unbounded popularity. They justly appreciated his qualities, and 
 he nobly repaid their confidence. 
 
 After bearing for years with the audacity and assumptions of 
 Great Britain, which were manifested by the slaughter of our citi- 
 zens, insults to our flag, aggressions upon our commerce, and the 
 impressment of more than 7000 American seamen, Congress de- 
 clared war against our ancient enemy on the 18th day of June, 
 1812. General Jackson immediately tendered his services to his 
 country, and by his great influence, induced 2500 citizen soldiers 
 to place themselves at the disposal of the government under his 
 command ; which tender of services Mas thankfully received by 
 the president, and Mr. Madison commissioned him a n ajor-gcneral 
 in the army of the I ' nited States. On the 21st of October, an order 
 was issued directing the govi rnor of Tennessee to call out, organize, 
 
Morrison's eulogy. 137 
 
 and equip 1500 men to reinforce General Wilkinson, then near 
 New Orleans. This order was promptly obeyed, and General Jack- 
 son was placed in command of the force, and on the 4th of January, 
 1813, embarked for Natchez, which place they reached on the 
 15th of February. Their services being unnecessary at this time, 
 they were ordered to be discharged by the secretary at war, with- 
 out any provision being made for their safe return to their homes. 
 General Jackson perceived the hardship of the case, and at once 
 determined that the men who had followed him in the discharge 
 of their duty, should be protected until they could protect them- 
 selves. He accordingly borrowed money, supplied their wants 
 from his own means, and returned them, in a body, to their families 
 and friends ; showing most conspicuously the magnanimity of his 
 nature, the kindness of his heart, and the energy of his character. 
 The government approved his conduct, and his fellow-citizens ap- 
 plauded his generosity. 
 
 The disgraceful tampering of the British government with the 
 Indian tribes upon our borders and within our limits, soon displayed 
 itself in the universal hostilities which they exhibited. The wild- 
 erness regions of the new states of Alabama and Florida were 
 swarming with disaffected and excited savages ; who were openly 
 encouraged as the allies of England. The country was exposed to 
 their cruelty and devastations. Fort Minis, near Mobile, was taken 
 by them, and more than 300 whites were slaughtered. Consterna- 
 tion pervaded the country, and help was loudly called for. With 
 his usual alacrity, General Jackson flew to the forests of the south- 
 west, backed by an army of Tennessee volunteers and militia. 
 They marched under a state requisition, and were scantily furnished 
 with supplies and provisions. The country was unsettled, without 
 roads, and unexplored. With all the means which were within 
 the reach of men, a sufficient sustenance for the troops could not 
 be procured. 
 
 Several other detachments also entered the field, and were but little 
 better provided with articles of subsistence. The commissaries could 
 only procure temporary and accidental supplies of forage and pro- 
 visions. No precaution or prudence could obviate these difficul- 
 ties. The savage foe daily became more insolent. The chafed 
 spirit of Jackson and his brave followers became impatient of re- 
 straint, and they resolutely penetrated the depths of the dreary 
 forests, threading their trackless wastes, and stemming the torrents 
 of their mighty streams. One campaign succeeded another, and 
 victory followed victory. The severe service, the poor prepara- 
 tion for the comfort of the troops, and the seeming neglect of the 
 government, wore out the patience of the soldiers, rendering it im- 
 possible to repress the disposition to disorder and mutiny. The 
 terms of service were short and uncertain, and frequently, when 
 12* 
 
138 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 their general most needed their support and the country their ser- 
 vice, they were found asserting their right to return home, and 
 their unwillingness to move forward. The minute history of that 
 war can alone portray its terrible difficulties; but when that his- 
 tory is correctly examined, it will show the peculiar character of 
 General Jackson in a more enviable light, than that of any other 
 general who ever conquered a savage foe on the continent of 
 America. The noble deeds of daring, the indefatigable toil, the 
 unlimited suffering, and the brilliant victories over the infatuated 
 Creeks, show a bravery, a devoted love of country, an enduring 
 heroism, equal to the most chivalric struggles of the Athenian and 
 Roman armies. The laurels of Hannibal or of Csesar were never 
 more daringly won, nor more strongly contested. Tallushatcliei, 
 Talladega, Emu ckfair, and Tokopekc^re Indian battle-fields; but 
 no more\alorous men ever met at Marathon or Thermopylae ! No 
 more deadly conflict ensanguined the plains of Marengo, Austerlitz 
 or Waterloo. True it is that armies were more numerous, and 
 the return of the slain more lengthy and more renowned : but no 
 more personal bravery, ferocious fanaticism, reckless indifference 
 to life, or indiscriminate slaughter, ever marked the meeting of 
 contending hosts. 
 
 These eventful campaigns, which drove from their retreats, and 
 perfectly subdued the savages of the south-west, were scarcely com- 
 pleted, before the eyes of the whole nation were attracted to the 
 demonstrations of a British fleet and army on its approach to the 
 mouth of the Mississippi, and its intended denouement against the 
 city of New Orleans. With all possible despatch the invincible 
 Jackson repaired to its defence, and well was it for the safety and 
 honour of the nation, that such a general was at the service of his 
 country. The defence of the city of New Orleans, the means at 
 the command of the general, the importance of the result, the 
 astounding loss of the enemy, the almost total escape of the Ameri- 
 cans, all conspire to make it one of the most remarkable victories 
 in the history of the world, and have served to place the military 
 renown of Andrew Jackson upon the pinnacle of the temple of fame. 
 For thirty years, the glories of those clays have been the theme of 
 orators, poets and statesmen, and are familiar as household words to 
 every ear now present. I shall, therefore, decline a rehearsal of 
 the soul-stirring details. With this great and priceless victory 
 ended the principal military services of the great captain of the 
 age; and he, in more than Roman glory, retired again to the peace- 
 ful shades of the Hermitage, surrounded and greeted by the bless- 
 ings of his grateful countrymen. Peace spread her angel wings 
 over our beloved land, and prosperity soon gladdened the hearts of 
 the American people. 
 
 His vigorous and efficient prosecution of the Seminole war which 
 
Morrison's eulogy. 139 
 
 afterwards disturbed our southern border, brought to a final con- 
 clusion his military labours, and permitted him once more to seek 
 his peaceful home, with the hope and desire of remaining amongst 
 his devoted and adoring friends. But so great was the confidence 
 of the President of the United States in his peculiar fitness to dis- 
 charge difficult trusts, that he was appointed governor of Florida, 
 which position he accepted, and patriotically rendered the most 
 signal service to his country in reducing to order and submission 
 those discontented and refractory spirits, who had to learn by 
 restraint and obedience to law, their first lessons of American 
 citizenship. Again the state of Tennessee made him her Senator 
 in Congress, and again he left the shades of retirement for the busy 
 scenes of public life. Soon the partialities of the American people 
 were visibly seen tending towards his selection as their candidate 
 for president of the United States ; and as he perceived this in- 
 tended demonstration of their feelings, his nice sense of honour and 
 delicacy of sentiment induced him once more to resign his office, 
 and to take his position as a private citizen. 
 
 The intermediate state of things which elevated him to the chief 
 magistracy of the nation on the 4th of March, 1S29, are so recent, 
 that each individual who has mature years and ordinary information, 
 must be familiar with them. 
 
 Here opened another and new field of his honourable fame. 
 Here was solved the question of his capacity as a statesman. His 
 integrity, his bravery, his heroism as a soldier and a general, were 
 universally acknowledged and applauded ; but a new theatre was 
 before him. With an honest heart and pure intentions, he entered 
 upon the discharge of the duties of his high and sacred trust. With 
 his whole soul filled with a pure love of his country and her insti- 
 tutions ; with a full and generous trust in the wisdom and justice of 
 the people, his mighty energies were alone directed to their welfare, 
 and to them alone he looked for strength and support. From his 
 earliest youth to his latest years, he formed his own judgments and 
 examined all questions for himself, and when convinced of the 
 correctness of his premises, he faithfully pursued his conclusions. 
 In this consisted the main secret of his overshadowing greatness. 
 His known rectitude of intention gained him the confidence of his 
 fellow-citizens, and it was the pride of his life that he never de- 
 ceived that confidence. The agitating questions which marked his 
 administration, are in some measure, still before the eyes of the 
 nation, and the decisions of some of them are still viewed with 
 different optics. Time and impartial history will do justice to the 
 prophetic wisdom, the mature reason, and patriotic labours of his 
 government. 
 
 Conspicuous in the labour's of that day will stand his great con- 
 flict with the colossal influence of the money-power of the nation, 
 
140 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 in opposition to tho rights and privileges of the people. No other 
 man than Andrew Jackson, hacked as he was, by the people, would 
 have been potent enough to have humbled that haughty power in 
 the dust. His acts, which resulted in restricting its dangerous 
 issues, and protecting the revenues of the nation ; together with his 
 veto upon its charter, proved his great sagacity, his incorruptible 
 firmness, and his deep and abiding devotion to principle. 
 
 His unyielding opposition to latitudinarian constructions of the 
 constitution, whereby the treasures of the country were to be ap- 
 plied to internal improvements, and favourite objects of visionary 
 speculation, doubtless saved the general government from the same 
 character of overwhelming embarrassment which has so unhappily 
 fallen upon many of the separate states of the Union. 
 
 His high and patriotic stand taken in support of the Union 
 against the secession of one of its members, for supposed wrongs, 
 will long be viewed as an evidence of the great regard he enter- 
 tained for the perpetuity of the confederation, and his determina- 
 tion to sustain the laws, which, as chief executive, he was bound 
 to see faithfully executed, marked with startling interest the event 
 of his proclamation. 
 
 It was with the most peculiar satisfaction that President Jackson 
 was enabled to exhibit to the world the rare spectacle of a great 
 nation existing without owing a dollar of national debt ; and he 
 rejoiced in being able to announce to his fellow-countrymen, that 
 all the pecuniary obligations incurred in the prosecution of the war 
 of independence had been faithfully and religiously paid. 
 
 His manly and decisive course in hastening the performance of 
 the obligations of the treaty with France, gave proof to the nations 
 of the world, that although we were disposed " to ask for nothing 
 but what was right, we would submit to nothing which was 
 wrong." 
 
 The great experience of his life led him to deep reflection upon 
 the best mode of ameliorating the condition, and prolonging the ex- 
 istence of the Aboriginal tribes. And his zealous exertions in 
 furnishing permanent homes for the Indians west of the Mississippi, 
 showed the philanthrophy of his nature and the sincerity of his 
 heart. 
 
 His many public and private charities, though numerous, and 
 generously extended, were unostentatious and frequently concealed. 
 He was no Pharisee, and sought not his reward in such cases, from 
 the hands of men. 
 
 These leading measures and principles were the distinguishing 
 points which signalized both the first and second terms of his service 
 as president. During their discussion and settlement, the greatest 
 excitement existed throughout the community, and their riifluences 
 have scarcely ceased to operate in the minds of the public. It:- 
 
Morrison's eulogv. 141 
 
 deed, it may be truly said, that the measures which characterized 
 the chief magistracy of Andrew Jackson, have left an abiding im- 
 pression upon the policy of the country. Political dogmas which 
 had grown gray in error and sufferance, were, by the impulses of 
 his mighty mind, exploded and terminated. No man ever filled the 
 presidential chair who more fully met the expectations of his friends, 
 or more triumphantly succeeded in the fulfilment of his political 
 designs. No man was ever more devotedly sustained by the people, 
 and no one ever laboured more assiduously, fearlessly, and patrioti- 
 cally to uphold and promote their rights and welfare. The purity 
 of his motives, the necessity of his unyielding policy, and the 
 benefits flowing and to flow from them, are already being manifested, 
 and will continue to shed a brighter and more radiant halo around 
 his beloved name, so long as our countrymen uphold and reverence 
 the true democratic doctrine of " equal rights, and equal privileges." 
 
 After having spent nearly the whole of his long and valuable life 
 in the service of his country, he bid a final adieu to public life on 
 the 3d of March, 1837, leaving his countrymen, as he well ex- 
 pressed himself, " prosperous and happy." 
 
 Amidst the scenes of his early years, in the company of his old 
 friends and neighbours, at his own loved Hermitage, he has since 
 passed, in happy tranquillity, the remaining days of his life. There, 
 in his last retirement, his active mind has been diligently occupied 
 in the contemplation of the condition of the nation, and his warn- 
 ing voice has been heard, advising a strict vigilance over her in- 
 terests. As a philosopher and a sage, his words have sunk deep 
 into the hearts of the people, and his last days have been comforted 
 in the belief and prospect that all will be well, according to the 
 desire of his heart. 
 
 As he was glorious in life, so has he been great in his death. 
 With Christian fortitude and patience he endured the afflictions of 
 the body, and with a Christian's hope he joyfully obeyed the sum- 
 mons of his Lord and Master, " to depart and be in peace." A 
 nation's prayers have ascended for him ; a nation's sympathies 
 have been blended with his sufferings; — and a nation mourns the 
 death of its most illustrious citizen. The sleep of death is upon 
 him. 
 
 That noble heart which never quailed in the presence of danger; 
 which ever sympathised with the woes of the oppressed, and most 
 tenderly burned with patriotic devotion to its country's service, 
 now quietly rests with the clods of the valley. 
 
 The character of Andrew Jackson is peculiar in itself. It com- 
 bines so many of the elements of true greatness, that it is difficult 
 to place its separate qualities in proper relief. There may be those 
 who will most prize him as a general, and there will be others 
 who will more highly esteem him as a statesman. That one man 
 
142 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 should so eminently present such claims to the admiration of his 
 fellow-citizens, is almost a phenomenon in the order of nature. 
 Time alone can establish the true measure of his greatness. 
 
 He has bequeathed a rich patrimony to his country and to the 
 world. It will be the proud duty of his countrymen to cherish 
 and perpetuate it to the latest posterity. 
 
 Ages may revolve before such another spirit shall claim a place 
 on the stage of life. Ambitious to be great, he was never accused 
 of selfishness. Although frequently the recipient of the highest 
 honours, he never condescended to court or seek them. His soul 
 abhorred deceit, and his tongue always spoke the truth. Mercy 
 was with him a darling attribute, and his personal honour, a price- 
 less jewel. A strong desire for the amelioration of the condition 
 of mankind, a liberal and tolerant disposition, and an expanded 
 charity, characterised his life. Inflexibly just in his decisions, 
 stern in the execution of his decrees, he never swerved from prin- 
 ciple. With a sensitive mind and excitable feelings, he blended a 
 due share of caution and an admirable systematic control of his 
 passions. He was not easily turned aside from his purposes, de- 
 ceived by specious appearances, nor misled by stratagems. An in- 
 tuitive perception of right and wrong enabled him to comprehend 
 easily the most difficult questions, where his cotemporaries were 
 compelled to labour and investigate. Almost reared in the camp, 
 and familiar with scenes of contention and bloodshed, he highly 
 estimated the blessings of peace, when compatible with the honour 
 of the nation. His energetic decision and boldness enabled him to 
 accomplish astonishing results by a single effort. He never con- 
 sulted his personal ease or safety in the consummation of his de- 
 signs. The fame of his country was as dear to him as the apple of 
 his eye, and under the folds of her standards, and the gaze of her 
 eagles, he always carried his life in his hand, ready to yield it up 
 in defence of her honour. He never unfurled his country's banner 
 upon a battle-field, without covering it with victory and with 
 glory. 
 
 As a statesman, he never urged an issue upon the consideration 
 of the nation without ably sustaining his position, and never failed 
 in carrying conviction of its correctness to the minds of the people. 
 Hence was he denominated "the man of the irori-viU." 
 
 The aged sire, as he holds upon his knee the child of his affec- 
 tion, will teach him to revere and cherish the recollections of this 
 mighty man. The candid citizen, as he muses upon the patriotic 
 labours of this illustrious sage, will feel the involuntary emotions 
 of gratitude springing up in his heart. The matron and the maiden, 
 when they review the brilliant exploits of this heroic general, in 
 the protection of their land from the calamities of invasion, will 
 rise up and call him blessed. The brave soldier of the American 
 
Morrison's eulogy. 143 
 
 army, with a worthy spirit of emulation, will look upon his ex- 
 ample and renown as the dearest objects of his regard, prompting 
 him to a willing discharge of his duty. The statesman and the 
 patriot will find instructive lessons in his life, and in the wisdom 
 of his counsel. The highest honours of the land have crowned 
 him whilst living. His cenotaph is the love of his countrymen. 
 His monument will be a holy remembrance in the hearts of the 
 American people. 
 
 In response to the sentiments and feelings of the whole nation, 
 the proper authorities of the country have directed the most dis- 
 tinguished national honours to his revered name, and have spoken 
 in the most enthusiastic and eloquent terms of his many virtues. 
 Well have they judged of the sacred devotion to his memory. A 
 mighty nation bows in grief to the stern decree which calls from 
 his earthly labours, him for whom we weep ; because he so well 
 loved us. 
 
 One last sacred duty devolves upon us as American citizens. 
 Let us, with enduring fidelity, guard from reproach and aspersion, 
 the glorious name and character which he has bequeathed to our 
 keeping and protection. As we receive the rich legacy of his 
 faithful services, so let us treasure his good name ; and posterity, 
 as they succeed us on the theatre of existence, will continue to 
 ascribe immortal honours to the immortal Jackson ! 
 
EULOGY 
 
 DELIVERED AT HARRISBURG, PA, JULY 24, 1815, 
 
 BY 
 
 FRANCIS R. SHUNK, 
 
 GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OP PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 The deep solemnity produced by the religious fervour of the 
 comprehensive and appropriate appeal, which has been made to 
 the God we worship and adore, leads us to the contemplation of 
 the character and services of our illustrious countryman, whose 
 funeral obsequies we have met to celebrate, with proper feelings, 
 and supplies the imperfection of the sketch I am about to give of 
 his merits. 
 
 It may well be remarked, with pride and satisfaction, that the 
 great men to whom we are indebted, under Heaven, for our civil 
 and religious rights, were generally pure. Virtue and goodness in 
 them sustained their patriotism, heroism, and devotion to the public 
 good ; and while their public services are appreciated, their private 
 lives are examples for imitation. 
 
 Those adventurous spirits, who founded the nation, whose ac- 
 tions fill the pages of history with a romance that needs not the 
 imaginings of the past to inspire the mind with wonder and admi- 
 ration — who tore themselves away from early associations — brushed 
 from their eyes the tear of regret which arose upon casting a last 
 look at the graves of their ancestors, and the homes of their child- 
 hood — who sought and found a new country, and founded a new 
 nation upon which they deeply enstamped the features of their 
 own individuality, have for ages slept in their graves; but their 
 achievements, their valor, and their devotion to liberty — the re- 
 ligion, virtue and morality that adorned their lives, are cherished 
 and revered by their descendants. 
 
 When the government of England sought to appropriate the 
 risin°" ereatnoss of this countr}' to itself, and strip the people of 
 
 044) 
 
EULOGY. 145 
 
 essential rights, men arose in our midst, as good as they were great, 
 in whom the public confidence centred, and by whom the freemen 
 of the country were represented in the field and in council — men 
 whose lives are the pride and ornament of this republic, and whose 
 actions fill the brightest pages in the history of the world. Wash- 
 ington, Franklin, Adams, and Jefferson, and many others, are names 
 distinguished for virtue, disinterestedness, and patriotism. Guided 
 by a light from Heaven, unerring as its source, and animated by a 
 love of liberty, as pure as it was ardent, they established our liberty 
 and impressed upon our institutions the wisdom, the forecast, and the 
 purity of their own great minds. They, too, are all gone to the 
 silence of the grave, but their fame will be ever fresh, while mind 
 and memory last. 
 
 The freedom which they secured was the first great advance 
 that had, for ages, heen made in the science of government. The. 
 light it diffused upon a subject so interesting to mankind, provoked 
 the hostility of those whose possessions depended upon the oppres- 
 sion of the race — an opposition like that which ignorance wages 
 against the lights of true philosophy — an enmity like that which 
 pagan superstition cherishes towards the blessed influences of the 
 Christian faith. 
 
 During the thirty years which followed the peace of 1783, the 
 conduct of England towards these states was repugnant to the ac- 
 knowledgments she had made. The time arrived when longer to 
 follow peaceful counsels was faithlessness to the true interests of 
 the country, and war was declared against England in 1812. 
 
 It is a cherished maxim of despotism, that the strength of go- 
 vernment consists in its power to rule, independently of the peo- 
 ple ; and the conclusion which tyranny drew from it, was, that 
 our system would be crumbled to pieces by the shock of war, and 
 that our resort to arms would extinguish the light our government 
 reflected to guide the oppressed. A great question was to be de- 
 cided : the eyes of the civilized world were upon us — monarchs, 
 and people of all nations, where the story of American liberty had 
 been told, regarded the result with intense anxiety. 
 
 The principal lights in the war of the Revolution had been 
 quenched by death — the knowledge of the art which that revolu- 
 tion had taught, was lost in the peaceful pursuits of the nation for 
 thirty years, or was only remembered by the remnant of that gal- 
 lant band, who felt that time had chilled the ardour and paralyzed 
 the energies of youth. The crisis had arrived when a nation, 
 proud of its origin, proud of the brilliant talents and services of 
 the men that adorned its annals, proud of its inestimable rights anc 
 unlimited freedom, was to determine whether the organic struc- 
 ture of its government could be sustained in the conflict of war, 
 and whether, among the descendants of the great and good, who 
 13 
 
146 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 shined like stars in its firmament, men would arise to preserve and 
 perpetuate its institutions, with hands as strong;, hearts as pure, and 
 minds as clear, as were those of the men who laid their broad foun- 
 dations, and who would in their turn shine as stars in the firma- 
 ment of liberty. 
 
 Here we reach the point in our history, where, for the first time, 
 the man whose death we have assembled to commemorate, appears 
 distinctly before the American people, to commence a career of 
 usefulness, of heroism, and of devotion to his country, which give 
 him a rank with the great men who founded the nation, with the 
 great men who achieved our independence, and with the great men 
 who laid broader and deeper the foundations of liberty during, and 
 since, the war of 1812. 
 
 Andrew Jackson was born in the state of South Carolina, of 
 Irish parents, on the 15th of March, 1767. He was permitted in 
 his youth to witness some of the stormy scenes of that revolution 
 which secured the independence of his country. He was himself 
 engaged as a volunteer under Colonel Davie, in a battle fought with 
 the British in South Carolina, on the 16th of August, 1780, when 
 he was between thirteen and fourteen years of age. The corps of 
 Davie, in which young Jackson fought, says the historian, particu- 
 larly distinguished itself, and suffered heavy loss. In 1781, he 
 received a wound from a British officer, for refusing, while a pri- 
 soner of war, to clean the boots of the insolent ruffian. In 1788, 
 he migrated to Tennessee, where he was soon after appointed at- 
 torney-general of the district, by Washington. In 1795, he was 
 elected a member of the convention to form a constitution for the 
 state. In 1796, he was elected a member of the House of Repre- 
 sentatives in Congress. In 1797, he was elected by the legisla- 
 ture of the state, a member of the Senate of the United States. 
 In 1798, he was appointed judge of the Supreme Court of law and 
 equity of the state. In 1801, he was appointed major-general 
 of the militia of the state. In 1814, he was appointed a major- 
 general in the army of the United States. In 1821, he was ap- 
 pointed governor of Florida. In 1823, he was appointed minister 
 to Mexico, which he declined, and in the same year he was elected 
 a member of the Senate of the United States. In 1828, he was 
 elected president of the United States ; and in 1832 he was re- 
 elected. On the 8th of June, 1845, he died, full of years, full of 
 honour, and full of hope of immortal happiness. 
 
 Jackson's first appearance as a military chief, was as commander 
 of the troops levied to carry on the war with the Indians of the 
 South. These red men of the forest were organized and trained by 
 leaders in whom were united the double influence of chiefs and of 
 prophets, and who controlled the religious as well as military ardour 
 of the people in a war against the United States, in which they 
 
shunk's eulogy. 147 
 
 were encouraged and aided by British agents. They presented a 
 formidable power, which made its demonstrations in acts of savage 
 cruelty, inflicted upon the border inhabitants. To reduce this 
 power and protect our citizens, a force was organized, under the 
 direction and control of General Jackson. 
 
 A subtle enemy had to be discovered in the recesses of his own 
 forest, and pursued through a wilderness with which experience 
 made him familiar, and gave him the full advantage of his peculiar 
 mode of warfare ; and this with troops hastily levied, imperfectly 
 disciplined, and inadequately supplied. Success, to be desirable, 
 must be decisive. It was necessary, in order that savage ferocity 
 might be overawed, that the irresistible power of the American 
 army should be demonstrated. All these objects were attained, by 
 the indomitable energy and consummate skill of the American 
 commander. The foe was discovered in his most secret retreats, 
 pursued with unceasing activity, defeated in repeated battles, the 
 frontier relieved from its alarm, and the enemy reduced to 
 submission. 
 
 The quality, the greatest quality of the general, that of inspiring 
 his men with his own enthusiasm and energy — that presence of mind 
 which instantaneously, in the greatest emergency, makes use of all, 
 and the most appropriate means within its reach — patience under 
 fatigue and suffering, which he shared equally with his men — firm- 
 ness in suppressing mutiny, and silencing discontent, and harmo- 
 nizing discord — activity in pursuit — a happy combination of wari- 
 ness and boldness in his plans — dauntless courage in action, and 
 consummate skill in securing the great ends of the campaign with 
 inadequate means, give Jackson a reputation in this war, to which 
 the victory of Orleans itself could scarcely add lustre. It is not 
 always when the numerical force of armies is the greatest, or the 
 object in controversy of the most stupendous magnitude, that the 
 skill of the general is put to the severest test. The victory of Or- 
 leans has resounded more throughout the world, it is more familiar 
 to men than those of Talladega, Emuckfaw, and Tohopeka, but 
 Jackson only displayed there the same qualities on another theatre, 
 under different circumstances, and against a different foe ; although 
 in the one campaign the savage only was reduced to submission, 
 and in the other, the pride of England was humbled, a city saved 
 from pillage, and the enemy expelled from the Mississippi. The 
 campaign of Italy has contributed more to the fame of Napoleon, 
 than those of Austerlitz and Jena, although by the one, a few pro- 
 vinces of Italy only were annexed to the French empire, while in 
 the other, two great military monarchies were stricken to the earth, 
 and the balance of power in Europe unsettled. 
 
 The achievement which has diffused the military fame of General 
 
148 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 Jackson throughout the world, and made the 8th of January one 
 of the great days of the republic, is the victory of Orleans. 
 
 The history of this glorious victory is too familiar to all to be 
 dwelt upon here. We all know how treason was overawed — how 
 the murmurs of discontent were silenced — how all the resources of 
 defence were developed and applied — how a panic-stricken popu- 
 lation were encouraged and animated with the spirit of his own 
 patriotism — with what noble self-devotion, responsibility was as- 
 sumed — the sagacity with which the designs of the enemy were 
 penetrated, and the boldness with which they were met, and how 
 the enemy, baffled on the 23d of December, were immolated on 
 the 8th of January. 
 
 We have often rejoiced, and our posterity shall rejoice, for all 
 time to come, that an American commander has contributed to 
 military history, a victory unparalleled in her annals. Behold a 
 line of American troops, some not wearing even the livery of war, 
 arrayed, animated, and directed, by the genius of one man, await- 
 ing the assault of 9000 English veterans, and driving them back 
 terror-stricken and disorganized : and despair not of the ability of a 
 nation of freemen to defend their country. 
 
 Let it not be said that the voice of accusation is heard mingling 
 with the plaudits of his countrymen — nor let this illustrious patriot 
 be accused of trampling upon the constitution of his country, in the 
 very hour when he perilled life and reputation to defend it. The 
 declaration of martial law by General Jackson (an act which has 
 been criticized if not censured), was not the exercise of capricious 
 despotism — it was one of the indispensable means of this glorious 
 defence. An emergency had arisen when the constitution imposed 
 silence upon herself, and became subordinate to a paramount, im- 
 perious law of necessity. This is another proof of the adequacy 
 of this great heart to all the exigencies of war. When the danger 
 had passed, and the constitution was no longer silent, amid the din 
 of arms, he recognised her voice, submitted cheerfully to the 
 authority of a civil magistrate, and restrained the indignation which 
 his unjust decision excited. He lived to hear the voice of his 
 country reverse his decree, and set the seal of approbation upon his 
 conduct. 
 
 This victory spread the military reputation of General Jackson 
 throughout the world. After a few years of service in the army, 
 during which his talents and energy were again called in requisition 
 by a war with the Seminole Indians, which he soon brought to a 
 successful ^conclusion, he retired to the shades of the Hermitage, 
 where he remained in the peaceful pursuits of agriculture, with the 
 exception of a short period while he was governor of Florida, and 
 senator of the United States, until he was called, by the voice of 
 
EULOGY. 149 
 
 the American people, to assume the duties of the highest office in 
 their gift. 
 
 Whatever differences may exist among his countrymen, in regard 
 to some measures of his administration, it must be admitted by all, 
 that the same courageous assumption of responsibility — the same 
 patriotism — the same energy and decision — the same honesty of 
 purpose — and the same devotion to the constitution and the Union, 
 which distinguished him as a general, he displayed as a statesman. 
 During his administration, questions arose which agitated the whole 
 community. Even the Union itself was threatened, and gave 
 occasion for an exhibition of devotion to its preservation, which 
 commanded universal applause. It may well be added, as a re- 
 markable truth, that all the leading measures of his administration, 
 whatever differences of opinion may have existed at the time, 
 have been finally approved by the people. 
 
 From the commencement of this government, the union of the 
 states was an object of the greatest anxiety with all our patriots 
 and statesmen. Jackson's whole life and conduct bear testimony 
 to his fixedness of purpose to sustain this vital interest of our com- 
 munity of states, which, however slightly it may be valued by 
 some, has been regarded, and is regarded by our greatest, best, and 
 wisest patriots, as the foundation upon which we must rest for the 
 perpetuity of our free institutions. The union of the states, ce- 
 mented by the constitution, creating general powers for the pro- 
 tection and security of all, and yet reserving to the several states 
 that essential sovereignty which is consistent with the powers 
 granted to the general government, is that perfection of wisdom, 
 which has, for nearly sixty years, secured to the people of these 
 states a degree of unexampled liberty and prosperity. It has dif- 
 fused its blessings throughout the nation. Under its mild and ex- 
 pansive influence, this people have advanced in all that dignifies 
 and adorns our nature. Knowledge and the arts are cherished. 
 Comfort and abundance are the sure rewards of honesty and indus- 
 try, and the religion of the Redeemer, uncontaminated by any 
 meretricious connexion with the government — resting upon its 
 essential divinity — sheds its mild and humanizing and heavenly 
 light upon man's pathway through life, and enables him, by the 
 hopes of a sure inspiration, to look for a place of blissful rest be- 
 yond the grave. 
 
 The father of his coutitry has, with great force, earnestness, 
 and zeal, enforced the duty of cherishing and preserving this union 
 of the states. He says : 
 
 " The unity of government which constitutes you one people, 
 
 is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in 
 
 the edifice of your independence, the support of your tranquillity 
 
 at home, your peace abroad, of vour safety, of your prosperity, of 
 
 13* 
 
150 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 that very liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to 
 foresee, that, from different causes, and from various quarters, much 
 iain8 will be taken, many artifices employed, to weaken in your 
 minds the conviction of this truth ; as this is the point in your 
 political fortress, against which the batteries of internal and exter- 
 nal enemies will be most constant^ and actively (though often 
 covertly and insidiously) directed : it is of infinite moment, that 
 you should properly estimate the immense value of your National 
 Union, to your collected and individual happiness — that you should 
 cherish a cordial, habitual, and immoveable attachment to it, accus- 
 toming yourselves to think and speak of it as the palladium of your 
 political safety and prosperity." 
 
 Faithful to the constitution, consistent with himself, and true to 
 his country, Andrew Jackson maintained the sanctity of the Union, 
 in an emergency when it was dangerously threatened. Animated 
 and instructed by the counsels, and reverencing the example of 
 Washington, when in 1S32, the state of South Carolina attempted 
 to nullify the laws of the United States, and advanced the doctrine 
 that she had an independent right to secede from the Union, he 
 "frowned indignantly upon the first dawning of the attempt to 
 alienate a portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the 
 sacred ties which link together the various parts ;" while he was 
 anxious to redress the wrongs of which they had just cause to com- 
 plain, his decision was clear that, as long as the law remained, it 
 
 MUST BE OBEYED. 
 
 The bold and determined course of the state of South Carolina, 
 the intelligence and chivalric spirit of her sons, who were prompt 
 in sustaining it, were met by President Jackson with all the energy 
 that marked his character. In his memorable proclamation of 
 December, 1832, he speaks to the citizens of the disaffected states 
 with paternal kindness. He points to the constitution as the per- 
 petual bond of our union, which we have received as the work of 
 the assembled wisdom of the nation, in which we have trusted as 
 the sheet anchor of our safety in the stormy times of conflict with 
 a foreign or domestic foe, to which we have looked with a sacred 
 awe, as the palladium of our liberties, and with all the solemnities 
 of religion, have pledged to each other our lives and fortunes here, 
 and our hopes of happiness hereafter, in its defence and support. 
 He invokes the descendants of the Pinkneys, the Sumters, the 
 Rutledges, and the thousand other names which adorn their revo- 
 lutionary history, not to abandon that union, to support which so 
 many of them fought, and bled, and died. He adjures them, as 
 they honour their memory, as they love the cause of freedom, to 
 which they dedicated their lives, as they prize the peace of our 
 country, the lives of its best citizens, and their own fair fame, to 
 retrace their steps. But having entreated, invoked, and adjured 
 
skunk's eulogy. 151 
 
 with fatherly affection — having placed before them the motives for 
 returning tothe path of duty, he assumes the dignity of the magis- 
 trate, and denounces the penalty of continued resistance. He tells 
 them they cannot destroy the constitution : they may disturb its 
 peace, interrupt the course of its prosperity, and cloud its reputa- 
 tion for stability, but its tranquillity will be restored, its prosperity 
 will return, and the stain upon its national character will be trans- 
 ferred, and remain an eternal blot on the memory of those who 
 caused the disorder. He then announces to his fellow-citizens of 
 the United States, that a crisis had approached in our affairs, on 
 which the continuance of our uninterrupted prosperity, our politi- 
 cal existence, and perhaps that of all free governments, may de- 
 pend. He relies with confidence on their individual support, in 
 his determination to execute the laws — to preserve the Union by all 
 constitutional means, to arrest, if possible, by moderate but firm 
 measures, the necessity of a recourse to force : and if it be the will 
 of Heaven, that the recurrence of its primeval curse on man, for 
 the shedding of a brother's blood, should fall upon our land, that it 
 be not called down by any offensive act on the part of the United 
 States. 
 
 With the deep solemnity of a good man, he concludes by saying, 
 " May the great Ruler of nations grant that the signal blessings 
 with which he has favoured ours, may not, by the madness of party, 
 or personal ambition, be disregarded and lost, and may his wise 
 Providence bring those who have produced this crisis to see their 
 folly, before they feel the misery of civil strife, and inspire a re- 
 turning veneration for that Union which, if we may dare to pene- 
 trate His designs, He has chosen as the only means of attaining the 
 high destinies to which we may reasonably aspire." 
 
 To this decisive and magnanimous course of President Jackson, 
 distinguished for honesty, plainness, simplicity, and firmness, the 
 nation was mainly indebted for the return of South Carolina to the 
 communion of her sisters, and for the preservation of the Union 
 itself, which was strengthened by the wisdom and force which met 
 the attempt to disrupt it. 
 
 The continuance of the Bank of the United States presented a 
 question during the presidency of Jackson, which divided the peo- 
 ple of these states. The utility, advantage, and necessity of such 
 an institution were strongly urged on one side, in favour of a re- 
 charter, while the danger arising from a great concentration of 
 money power, and its evil tendency in a republican government, 
 formed the ground of objection to it. Andrew Jackson was among 
 those who were opposed to the recharter of the bank, and while 
 those in opposition to him on this question may deprecate the 
 effects of his course, they must admit the energy and honesty of it. 
 The varied power and influence of this institution secured the pas- 
 
152 MONUMENT TO JACKSON 
 
 sage of a bill in both houses of Congress, extending its charter, in 
 1832. It was presented to the president for his signature. He 
 was a candidate for re-election the coming November, and might 
 justly anticipate that all this array of power and influence would 
 be marshalled against him, if he withheld his signature. But he 
 remained firm and immoveable. His convictions of the dangerous 
 tendencies of the bank were too clear. He saw the storm gather- 
 ing around him, but he smiled at its approach. Sustained by con- 
 scious rectitude, he maintained his position undismayed, and pre- 
 sented an example of devotion to what he believed to be the best 
 interests of the country and of exalted patriotism, like those of 
 Grecian and Roman virtue, which has been consecrated for the 
 benefit and instruction of mankind. His hostility to that institu- 
 tion was determined and persevering — he believed he was right, 
 and in the strength of that belief, he advanced in the course he had 
 prescribed for himself with unfaltering and uncompromising deci- 
 sion, until his object was accomplished. His own words are the 
 best illustration of his conduct that can be given. He says : — 
 
 " In vain do I bear upon my person enduring memorials of that 
 contest in which American liberty was purchased — in vain have I 
 since perilled property, fame, and life, in defence of the rights and 
 privileges so dearly bought — in vain am I now without a personal 
 aspiration, or the hope of individual advantage, encountering re- 
 sponsibilities and dangers, from which, by mere inactivity in relation 
 to a single point, I might have been exempt, if any serious doubts 
 can be entertained as to the purity of my purposes and motives. 
 If I had been ambitious, I should have sought an alliance with that 
 powerful institution, which even now aspires to no divided empire. 
 If I had been venal, I should have sold myself to its designs — had 
 I preferred personal comfort and official ease, to the performance 
 of my arduous duties, I should have ceased to molest it. In the 
 history of conquerors and usurpers, never, in the fire of youth, nor 
 in the vigour of manhood, could I find an attraction to lure me 
 from the path of duty, and now I shall scarcely find an inducement 
 to commence the career of ambition, when gray hairs and a decay- 
 ing frame, instead of inviting to toil and battle, call me to the con- 
 templation of other worlds, where conquerors cease to be honoured, 
 and usurpers expiate their crimes. The only ambition I can feel, 
 is to acquit myself to him, to whom I must soon render an account 
 of my stewardship, to serve my fellow-men and live respected and 
 honoured in the history of my country." If there is one virtue in 
 the character of General Jackson, pre-eminent above the rest, it is 
 the disinterestedness which he here claims, and which his country 
 awards him. 
 
 His whole career is strongly marked by heroism, disinterested- 
 ness, and devotion to his country. The age of fourteen found him 
 
shunk's eulogy. 153 
 
 in the ranks of war. The indomitable spirit which prompted the 
 boy, the prisoner and the orphan to disobey a degrading order, be- 
 tokened the future hero. A pioneer of the wilderness, and yet ac- 
 quiring under the guidance of his strong understanding and refined 
 feeling, the polished manner and dignified address which became 
 the elevated stations he filled. A republican in principle and 
 practice. Distinguished alike for honesty of purpose and decision 
 of character. His was an elevated political morality, which could 
 not stoop to flatter venal passion, but always appealed to the virtue 
 of his countrymen. Gifted by nature with a mind keen in its per- 
 ceptions and clear in its conclusions, his decisions were seldom 
 wrong, and always honest. The warrior of many battles, yet pre- 
 served to give the world the example of a tranquil death of a Chris- 
 tian in the bosom of his family. 
 
 The great benefactors of mankind are seldom appreciated, nor 
 can they be fully appreciated by the generation to which they be- 
 long. Time and the progress of events, which have received a 
 direction from their master's hands, can only fully develope the 
 value of their services. The achievements of General Jackson in 
 the field and in the cabinet must not be estimated by their immedi- 
 ate effects, but with reference to their influence upon the future 
 destiny of the country. The American government and the Ame- 
 rican people are invested with the glory of his triumphs — they 
 hold and will hold the eminent rank his services have acquired for 
 them, and feel the dignity and pride of country which they con- 
 fer; other nations will be influenced and regulated in their conduct 
 towards us by the force and permanency which his character and 
 services have enstamped upon our institutions, while our own peo- 
 ple, young and old, from generation to generation, will regard his 
 liiography as among the most precious records of their history, 
 and gather from his life the noblest examples for their imitation. 
 
 On the 8th of June last, this life, crowded with acts which con- 
 ferred renown upon his country, and preserved from a thousand 
 dangers, drew tranquilly to its close. Warned of his approach, 
 and armed with the faith and resignation of a Christian, death came 
 to him as the welcome messenger to open for his entrance the por- 
 tals of the city of the blest. The life spent in illustrating the 
 annals of his country, treasuring up immortal fame for himself, 
 glorified God in its close. When the inevitable hour came, stoop- 
 ing from the very highest pinnacle of earthly fame, in meekness 
 and humility to the very foot of the cross, the venerable old man, 
 his brow bound with civic and military wreaths, bowed his head 
 to the stroke with the dignity the Christian faith alone can inspire. 
 Childless, the pains of his last illness were assuaged, and its tedious 
 hours beguiled by affection more than filial, and bursts of grief from 
 
154 
 
 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 hearts in which not a drop of his blood was mingled, paid the holi- 
 est tribute to his memory when he died. 
 
 With paternal admonitions, tender adieus to those to whom not 
 blood, but affection, made him father, in the confident hope of a 
 blissful immortality, his spirit, released from its frail and decaying 
 tenement, has gone to receive its reward. 
 
EULOGY 
 
 DELIVERED AT LANCASTER, PA., JUNE 26, 1845, 
 
 BY THE 
 
 HON. ELLIS LEWIS. 
 
 Friends and Fellow-Citizens ! Andrew Jackson is no more ! 
 His spirit has taken its flight to another, and, we trust, a better 
 world ! We are assembled to mourn the loss of a national bene- 
 factor, and to commemorate his virtues. It is the fortune of the 
 American people to be frequently engaged in the discussion of 
 public measures, and to be as often divided in opinion, in reference 
 to the questions at issue. But it is one of the bright traits of their 
 character, to evince a magnanimous desire to do justice to any of 
 their distinguished citizens, when they are no longer amongst us to 
 speak for themselves. The scenes of to-day stand forth as an ex- 
 ample. The most distinguished opponents of measures sustained 
 by the illustrious deceased, unite with his friends in the ceremonies 
 designed to do justice to his abilities — to the purity of his motives 
 — to his undaunted bravery and exalted patriotism. And for this 
 purpose differences of opinion have been laid aside, and all have 
 united in selecting, to address you, on this melancholy occasion, an 
 early but an humble friend of the deceased — one who has generally 
 approved of his public acts — who has participated in the hospitali- 
 ties of his house and table — who has loved him for his private vir- 
 tues — and who can personally bear testimony to the deep humility 
 of his Christian devotions, in the period of his highest earthly ex- 
 altation. Under such circumstances, your speaker would do in- 
 justice to the occasion, and equal violence to his own feelings, if 
 he intentionally expressed a sentiment or uttered a word which 
 might interrupt the universal harmony, or give just cause of offence 
 to any portion of his fellow-citizens. 
 
 It has been said that " Republics are ungrateful ;" but the 
 startling event which has called us together has added another 
 proof to the many evidences already before us, that our happy 
 
 (155) 
 
156 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 form of government is not justly liable to this reproach. The 
 people of this extended republic have not been ungrateful to 
 their patriots and statesmen. Washington, Adams, Jefferson, 
 Madison, Monroe and Harrison, received the greatest rewards 
 in life, and the highest honours in death, which a grateful peo- 
 ple could bestow. And the hero whose loss we now deplore 
 has enjoyed the strongest proofs of the grateful attachment of his 
 fi'llow-citizens. Although the events of his brilliant career as a 
 general, and his faithful administration as a president, have pro- 
 duced great diversity of opinion, and much energy in discussion, 
 the moment his death is announced, the nation pauses to survey the 
 extent of its obligations! And the next moment an outpouring of 
 patriotic feeling bursts forth, like a volcano, from the whole land ; 
 and, as it pours along, like a river of burning lava, it obliterates 
 alike the underbrush of error and the weeds of uncbaritableness, 
 leaving nothing for our contemplation but the bright and glowing 
 stream of a republic's gratitude ! The voice of party, which was 
 silenced in the day of battle by the roar of artillery — the clangor 
 of arms and the gurgling of blood, is again stilled to give place, in 
 the hour of death, to the tolling bell — the funeral gun, and the 
 wailing voice of a sorrowing nation. 
 
 In this happy exhibition of national character, we may see the 
 proof that our country's freedom is destined to perpetuity. The 
 scrutiny with which we examine the acts of our public men shows 
 that we are ready to pay, for the blessings of liberty, that " eternal 
 vigilance" which has been declared to be its "price." And the 
 generosity with which we applaud pure motives and great actions, 
 proves that differences of opinion amongst ourselves are never per- 
 mitted to deprive the truly deserving of their just reward. 
 
 The "philosophy which teaches by example" assures us that the 
 rewards which are held in the highest regard by a nation, are the 
 chief incitements to deeds of valour and patriotism. Where orders 
 of knighthood and patents of nobility are dispensed, as the rewards 
 for public services, other more noble objects of ambition are less 
 appreciated and less necessary for the support of government. But, 
 in governments resting upon the public will, established by a peo- 
 ple who have no taste for royalty, or the stars and garters of no- 
 bility, the highest reward which a patriot can receive or desire, is 
 the approving confidence of his fellow-citizens. When this has 
 been deserved, justice and policy require that it should be meted 
 out with a liberal hand and an ungrudging heart. Justice to Andrew 
 Jackson, and a proper regard for the interests of the country, unite 
 in requiring that we should cherish his memory and honour his 
 name. The rising generation who witness these ceremonies will 
 thus be encouraged to emulate the hero and the patriot. And 
 when the crisis shall come, and the country shall call for her sons, 
 
lewis's eulogy. 157 
 
 they will flock around her standard, ready to do battle in her cause, 
 on land and on sea — on the lakes or on the Rocky Mountains — on 
 the coast of the Atlantic or on the shores of the Pacific ! 
 
 While we mingle our sorrows together, it is therefore proper to 
 unite in a just tribute to departed worth. And the occasion is ap- 
 propriate for such reflections as may be useful to ourselves, and 
 peneficial to our country and its institutions. 
 
 History is the mirror of the past ; the guide of the present, and 
 the beacon of the future. Let us look at the images which she 
 presents for our contemplation. We may find valuable lessons for 
 our present career, and salutary warnings for the time to come. 
 But, while we proceed in the examination, let us bear in remem- 
 brance that the power which has summoned the greatest amongst 
 us to his final account, may, at any moment, send the like sum- 
 mons to us ; that the sands which have numbered the days of the 
 hero, are rapidly measuring out the fragment of time allotted to 
 each that survives ; and that while we are offering funeral honours 
 to the illustrious dead, our own hearts, 
 
 ''Like muffled drums, are beating 
 Funeral marches to the grave." 
 
 Andrew Jackson was born in what was called the Waxhaw Set- 
 tlement, in South Carolina, on the 15th of March, 1767. His 
 parents were emigrants from Ireland. Shortly after his birth his 
 father died, leaving three children, to be provided for by their 
 widowed mother. The eldest son lost his life at the battle of 
 Stono, by the excessive heat of the weather and fatigues of the day. 
 As soon as the Revolutionary war extended into South Carolina, 
 the two other brothers, Andrew and Robert, hastened to the Ame- 
 rican camp, and engaged in the service of the country. At this 
 time, Andrew was a boy, at the tender age of fourteen, but he 
 performed the services of a man. In the course of military opera- 
 tions, the two brothers were taken prisoners by the British dra- 
 goons under the command of Major Coffin. Andrew was ordered 
 by a British officer to perform acts of menial servitude, which he 
 declined, claiming the rights to which he was entitled as a prisoner 
 of war, under the law of nations. The officer, incensed at his re- 
 fusal, aimed a blow at his head with a drawn sword, which An- 
 drew parried with his arm, and saved his life by receiving on his 
 hand the wound intended for his head. His brother, at the same 
 time, for a similar offence, received a deep cut on the head, of 
 which he afterwards died. Upon the exchange of prisoners, the 
 two brothers were set at liberty, but Robert died of his wound a 
 few days after his liberation, and his mother, worn with grief and 
 suffering, expired a few weeks after her son. Andrew Jackson, 
 the only surviving child, confined to a bed of sickness, occasioned 
 14 
 
158 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 by his sufferings while a prisoner of war, and attacked by the 
 small-pox, was thus left at the door of death — in the wide world 
 — in the unprotected tenderness of youth — alone — friendless — and 
 without a human being whom he could claim as a near relation. 
 But the same God which saved the Hebrew infant, in his bulrush 
 ark, and made him a mighty ruler over the people, watched over 
 the fortunes of the American orphan ! 
 
 At the age of seventeen, he commenced the study of the law. 
 At nineteen, he obtained a license to practise, and at twenty-one, 
 he settled in Nashville, and commenced the practice of his profes- 
 sion. His efforts were crowned with success. He received from 
 the immortal Washington the appointment of attorney-general for 
 the district. At this early period, he was remarkable for his effi- 
 ciency in aiding to quell the Indian disturbances. At twenty- 
 nine, he was elected a member of the convention to establish the 
 constitution of Tennessee. The same year he was elected a mem- 
 ber of Congress. And the next year, at the age of thirty, he was 
 chosen a United States senator, which he soon after resigned, from 
 an aversion to political life. At thirty-two, against his wishes, he 
 was appointed a supreme judge of the state, which he also re- 
 signed soon afterwards, and retired to his farm, about ten miles 
 from Nashville, on the Cumberland river, where he remained en- 
 gaged in the peaceful pursuits of agriculture, until summoned by 
 the second war with Great Britain to take part in the defence of 
 the country. He had been chosen a major-general in the militia 
 of Tennessee, and at the age of forty-five, in 1812, he raised two 
 thousand five hundred volunteers from among the brave sons of his 
 neighbours and friends, and at their head, tendered his services to 
 the general government to repel an expected invasion from the 
 British. He descended the Ohio and Mississippi to Natchez, where 
 he had been instructed to wait further orders. The danger of in- 
 vasion being dispelled, he was directed, by the secretary at war, to 
 disband his troops on the spot, and deliver up the public stores to 
 General Wilkinson, whose recruiting officers were in attendance, 
 ready to take advantage of the necessities of the brave volunteers 
 — thus disbanded — nearly five hundred miles from their homes, 
 and deprived by this order, if obeyed, of provisions or means to 
 return. They were about to be left to the alternative of enlist- 
 ment in the regular army or starvation. At this time, there were 
 one hundred and fifty on the sick roll, fifty-six of whom were un- 
 able to raise their heads ; and it is not certain that even the charity 
 of enlistment was offered to these. Many of these volunteers were 
 3'ouths in their teens, the rich jewels of their patriotic parents, 
 who had followed the fortunes of their general because they con- 
 fided in his humanity as well as his bravery, and because he had 
 given the pledge that all who did not perish in honourable battle, 
 
lewis's eulogy. 159 
 
 should be safely returned to their homes. Here was a trial for the 
 citizen soldier ! To obey the order, was to forfeit his word — to 
 abandon his men to the direst calamities, and, at the same time, to 
 fix a stigma on his government which might for ever deprive it of 
 the confidence and support of the yeomanry on which the country 
 relied for defence. To disobey, was to expose himself to the cen- 
 sure of his government — to the severe punishments of the military 
 law — and to the loss of all that a soldier values as worthy of a 
 soldier's ambition. But Andrew Jackson did not hesitate, in such 
 a crisis. He was incapable of perpetrating a deed at which hu- 
 manity would shudder, and from which Christianity would turn 
 weeping away ! He disobeyed the order, and marched his men to 
 their homes. To the honour of his country, his explanations were 
 satisfactory to the government, and his proceedings were approved 
 of by authority as well as sanctioned by humanity. 
 
 We do not pause to inquire into the technical principle involved 
 in this proceeding. All men, European and American — civilized 
 and savage — already know that Andrew Jackson was one who re- 
 garded substance and not form — whose intuitive perceptions of right 
 have ever found a ready response in the hearts of his countrymen, 
 and whose course, through an eventful and perilous life, has been to 
 follow these perceptions, regardless of all consequences to himself, 
 and ever ready to meet responsibility. But these trying events 
 may be recalled, for the purpose of reminding us that the warrior 
 who could mino-le in scenes of blood and carnage, dealing death and 
 havoc among his country's foes, was keenly alive to the tenderest 
 emotions of our nature, and never forgot the dictates of benevolence 
 and humanity. 
 
 General Jackson retired from the service, but his retirement was 
 of short duration. The Indians renewed their barbarous depreda- 
 tions. Under the bloody counsels of Tecumseh, who visited the 
 different tribes, and by his eloquence inflamed them against the 
 white population, the Creek confederacy commenced tbeir savage 
 warfare! And who is ignorant of the Indian mode of war? 
 Neither age nor sex is spared — the resisting and the unresisting — 
 the old and the young — the mother and the child, are swept away 
 in the torrent of blood and carnage that marks the path of the re- 
 lentless savage. Prisoners who surrender under the most solemn 
 pledges that their lives and property shall be protected — the wounded 
 and the helpless — the sick and the dying — are robbed even of the 
 clothing on their backs — deliberately shot — tomahawked in cold 
 blood — scalped — denied the right of burial, or, if buried by their 
 comrades before these enormities are perpetrated, they are raised 
 from their graves, and robbed and stripped and scalped — and then 
 left, their bodies to be devoured by wild animals — their bones to 
 
160 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 bleach upon the earth, wherever they might chance to be scattered 
 by the beasts of prey that feed upon the dead and the dying ! 
 
 The murder of three hundred men, women, and children, at 
 Fort Mimms, was but a small rivulet in the sanguinary stream 
 which deluged the frontier settlements. At the sound of the war- 
 whoop, the helpless children were struck with dismay, and the 
 women clasped their infants convulsively in their arms as they fled 
 and shrieked in terror; while every father, and husband, and bro- 
 ther, and son, seized his rille and rushed to the conflict in defence 
 of all that was valued in life. Chief among these brave spirits, and 
 leading them on to the battle, was Andrew Jackson ! He routed 
 them with terrible slaughter at Talladega — he defeated them in like 
 manner at Emuckfaw ! and he almost extinguished their whole race 
 in their last bloody battle at the Horseshoe ! He was too sagacious 
 to be betrayed into ambuscades by their wiles — too brave to be 
 terrified by their war-whoops — and too powerful in arms to be 
 overcome by their prowess ! 
 
 In the prosecution of this war, he suffered the severest fatigues 
 and privations; and encountered obstacles in the mutinies and 
 threatened desertion of large bodies of his men, which are almost 
 without a parallel. But, in all these scenes of trial, he evineed the 
 traits of benevolence, which have shone through his whole life. 
 His own horse was frequently surrendered to the fatigued soldier, 
 while the humane general walked by his side; and, in times of 
 terrible privation and destitution of food, the wants of his nun were 
 relieved before his own. If he had nothing else, he divided the 
 handful of acorns he had gathered, and when so fortunate as to pro- 
 cure a scanty supply of beef, his own share was given up to his 
 men, while he supplied himself with the offals which had been left 
 where the animals provided for his troops had been slaughtered ! 
 
 He retired from the service on the 21st of April, 1814. But bis 
 achievements as an officer in the militia, induced the government 
 to tender him the appointment of major-general in the army. And 
 the man who had repeatedly retired from the honours and emolu- 
 ments of civil life, stood ready, at the call of his country, to give 
 up the comforts of his retirement, and to repair to the post of dan- 
 ger. But, we must pass over many of the scenes and trials and 
 triumphs of his life, and leave to history the task of doing ample 
 justice to his deeds and motives. 
 
 We were engaged in a war with the most powerful nation in the 
 world. Her military strength is so wide-spread, that the sound of 
 her drum is heard around the world; her dominions are so extensive 
 that the sun never sets upon them ; and she boasts of her maritime 
 power, that 
 
 * Her march is o'er the mountain wave, 
 Her home is on the deep!" 
 
lewis's eulogy. 161 
 
 The general peace which had been concluded among the powers 
 of Europe in April, 1814, and which had resulted in consigning 
 Napoleon to Elba, enabled this mighty nation to concentrate her 
 whole military and naval power upon our shores. In addition to 
 the warlike movements on our northern and western frontiers, the 
 whole line of our sea-board was invaded at various points, from the 
 Passamaquoddy to the Mississippi. Baltimore was attacked — Havre 
 de Grace was burnt — Alexandria was pillaged, and our National 
 Capitol itself was destroyed ! The Senate Chamber and the Hall 
 of Representatives — the President's House and the buildings for 
 the heads of departments — the library of the nation and the records 
 of the government — the works of science and the labours of art — 
 were all involved in one general conflagration by the torch of the 
 invading foe ! And, the disciplined Vandals of Europe, who had 
 perpetrated these outrages, were advancing upon New Orleans, with 
 a watch-word that proclaimed to a brutal soldiery, that the wealth 
 of the city and the wives and daughters of its inhabitants, should be 
 given up to the ravaging cupidity and despoiling lust of the victors ! 
 
 But Andrew Jackson, with a far-reaching foresight, anticipated 
 the attack, and arrived at New Orleans on the 1st December, 1814, 
 for the purpose of defending the city. He immediately commenced 
 the most active preparations against traitors within and enemies 
 without. A rigid system of police was established — every avenue 
 of approach was guarded and fortified ; and, among the measures 
 resorted to, for the defence of the city, was the declaration of mar- 
 tial law ; and, as a consequence, the temporary suspension of such 
 civil powers, as, in their operation, interfered with those which the 
 commanding general was necessarily obliged to exercise in the de- 
 fence of the country. At such a crisis, he thought that " constitu- 
 tional forms should be suspended for the permanent preservation of 
 constitutional rights — that it was better to depart, for a moment, 
 from the enjoyment of our dearest privileges, than to have them 
 wrested from us for ever." In thus placing the defence of this 
 measure upon the highest law of nature and of nations — that of 
 over-ruling necessity in self-preservation, he stood upon impregna- 
 ble ground, so far as principle was involved, whatever differences 
 of opinion may exist with regard to the application of the principle, 
 or the existence of the dire necessity of resorting to a measure so 
 extraordinary. Upon a full examination of the subject, in all its 
 bearings, the Secretary at War, himself one of the most distinguished 
 jurists of the age, by order of the president, declared, in the name 
 of the nation, that this ground was "just as it respected the respon- 
 sibility of the commanding general, and safe as it respected the 
 liberties of the nation." And the nation itself, after a deliberation 
 of thirty years — in its assembled wisdom — in the high exercise of 
 its acknowledged power, cheered the heart of the patriot in Hie 
 14* 
 
162 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 evening of his days, by a reversal of the only judgment that ever 
 was pronounced to the contrary, and by an award of restitution of 
 the fine of one thousand dollars, which a judge had imposed, as a 
 punishment for the interruption of his civil functions. The ladies 
 of New Orleans raised the money to discharge the fine, but the 
 general declined receiving it, and requested that it might be dis- 
 tributed among the widows and orphans of those who had fallen in 
 the battle ! It was woman's gratitude that raised the fund ! — God 
 bless the sex! — Ever foremost in the work of charity — always min- 
 istering to the sick — lingering longest at the cross — speeding 
 earliest to the sepulchre ! They never erred but once ; and if that 
 error had been committed at a later period of the world, after four 
 thousand years of bright and lovely deeds, the accusing spirit had 
 carried the offence to Heaven's Chancery in vain ! 
 
 He paid the fine out of his own funds, although greatly embar- 
 rassed at the time. The very dwelling-house in which he had long 
 resided, and a large portion of his farm, had been disposed of to re- 
 lieve his embarrassments, and his family resided in the humblest 
 log-cabin, on a retired portion of the estate, which remained. 
 Here we see the devotion to principle which has influenced his 
 whole life! If he had offended against the constitution of his 
 country, it was just that he, and not others, should suffer the punish- 
 ment. And when a judgment had been pronounced against him by 
 a competent tribunal, it was the part of a good citizen to submit 
 until it should be reversed, although he questioned its justice. The 
 same devotion which had induced him to still the voice of the 
 multitude, and to prevent an open resistance to the judge's authority 
 while he was imposing the fine, guided his decision that its pay- 
 ment should not be evaded by the generous subscriptions of others. 
 
 But let us return from the defence of the general to the defence 
 of New Orleans. Alarm pervaded the city. The marching and 
 counter-marching of the troops — the proximity of the enemy — 
 the known power of his arms, and the uncertainty of the issue, had 
 excited a general fear. As the general and his troops were march- 
 ing through the city, his ears were assailed with the screams and 
 cries of innumerable females, who had collected on the way, and 
 seemed to fear the worst consequences. Feeling their distresses, 
 and anxious to quiet them, he directed Mr. Livingston to address 
 them in French — the language which thev understood, and to say 
 to them," Be not alarmed— the enemy shall never reach the city ! M 
 The effect was electrical! The words were the words of prophecy ! 
 
 Let us pause for a moment to admire this beautiful display of 
 human kindness, combined with human greatness. Amid the cares 
 and anxieties, and the hopes and fears of his responsible station, and 
 while occupied and surrounded by the dreadful note of preparation, 
 the mighty conqueror reins in his \\ ar-horse, and pauses in his career 
 
lewis's eulogy. 163 
 
 of arms and death, to send a cheering message to the weak and the 
 timid, the loved and the lovely ones of the city ! 
 
 But the enemy at last landed ;. and the moment the intelligence 
 reached General Jackson, instead of waiting his arrival at New 
 Orleans, the general advanced to assail him, in his "first position" 
 on the American soil. The British had reached the Mississippi, and 
 had encamped upon its banks, seven miles below New Orleans, as 
 composedly as if they had been seated on their own soil at a distance 
 from all danger. They felt certain of success, and that the Ameri- 
 can troops so easily routed at Bladensburg, would scarcely venture 
 to resist at New Orleans. Resting thus confidently, they would 
 have moved forward the next day, and might have accomplished 
 their designs. But General Jackson, with a force, inferior by one- 
 half to that of the enemy, at an unexpected moment, broke into 
 their camp, and, with his undisciplined yeomanry, drove before him 
 for nearly a mile the proud conquerors of Europe ! This was on 
 the 23d of December, 1814: and, although it was not the death- 
 blow, it was the master-stroke of bravery and sagacity which saved 
 the city from pillage. It induced the enemy to believe that the 
 American force was greater than his spies had reported it, caused 
 him to suspend his meditated attack, until he received reinforce- 
 ments ; and thus gave the American general time to complete his 
 fortifications and gather additional forces for defence. 
 
 The memorable 8th of January arrived ! Twelve thousand vete- 
 rans of the British army, under the command of Sir Edward Pack- 
 enham, advanced to assault the American breastworks ! The can- 
 non thundered from every battery — the Tennessee rifles were 
 levelled with deadly aim — grape-shot and shells were scattered as 
 thick as hailstones over the plain. Three times the enemy ad- 
 vanced, and each time he was driven back, with the slaughter of 
 his bravest men, and, at last, he retreated in confusion. His com- 
 mander was slain, many of his principal officers were wounded, 
 and the field was covered with nearly two thousand of his dead and 
 wounded ! The crowning glory of this brilliant victory is, that it 
 was accomplished, through the military skill of General Jackson, 
 with the loss of only thirteen killed and thirty-nine wounded, on 
 the part of the Americans! The second war with Great Britain 
 was thus terminated in a blaze of glory. Honoured be the memory 
 of the chief whose wisdom and courage so brilliantly illuminated 
 its closing scene ! 
 
 In the latter part of the year 1817, the hostilities of the Semi- 
 noles and other Florida Indians called for the services of General 
 Jackson. In this war, his measures were as active and skilful, and 
 his conduct as brave, as in the wars which had preceded. Its 
 events have been the subject of lengthened discussion, and his 
 country's judgment has been pronounced upon them. The repre- 
 
164- MONUMENT TO .TACKSON. 
 
 sentatives of the people justified his course to the nation ; and the 
 eloquent argument of the American Secretary of State vindicated 
 it before the governments of England and Spain. 
 
 In 182-i, his name was brought before the people as a candidate 
 for the highest olfice in their gift, and the most honourable station 
 on earth. He received in the electoral colleges a greater number 
 of votes than were given to an}' other candidate. But there being 
 more than two candidates, and no one having received a majority 
 of the whole number, the election devolved upon the House of 
 Representatives, and one of his competitors was chosen. But the 
 people were dissatisfied with this seeming disregard of their will, 
 and they elected their favourite in 1828, by a vote of more than 
 two to one! In 1832, he was re-elected, against his own wishes, 
 by an increased majority. In 1837, he retired from public life to 
 the domestic endearments of the Hermitage, where he continued, 
 loved and respected, during the remainder of his life. 
 
 The measures of his administration were important, and have 
 been much discussed. They are fresh in the recollection of all, 
 and it will not be necessary or appropriate to examine their merits. 
 A few remarks may, however, be indulged, without danger of 
 offence. Under his administration, the nations of the earth were 
 taught to respect the stars and the stripes of the American flag! 
 and indemnity was obtained for spoliations which had been commit- 
 ted by the illegal seizure of our vessels at sea, when the country 
 was young and weak ; and when she could not boast a leader whose 
 name was a proclamation to the world, that he stood ready to sus- 
 tain with his arms the just determination which had guided his ne- 
 gotiations, "To ask nothing that was not, clearly right — to submit 
 to nothing that was wrong." 
 
 The laws establishing a tariff for the collection of a revenue, and 
 at the same time designed to protect our domestic manufactures, 
 met with much opposition in the southern states. And South Caro- 
 lina passed an ordinance declaring them null and void, and openly 
 declared her determination to resist them with the whole force at 
 her command. The nation was threatened with a civil war, and 
 in that event it was uncertain how many of the states opposed to 
 the tariff would act in concert with South Carolina. The experi- 
 ment of self-government seemed about to be tested. In this alarming: 
 crisis, the president issued his celebrated proclamation, which, for con- 
 stitutional argument, stands unequalled by any which ever appeared 
 upon the subject, except that of Daniel Webster, in the United 
 States Senate. In this imperishable document, the president rea- 
 soned as a jurist, admonished as a father, and decided with the de- 
 termination of a warrior whose battles were always victorious, that 
 " the Union must, and should be preserved." 
 
 An immense money corporation had been created by Congress, 
 
lewis's eulogy. 165 
 
 with its branches extending into every part of the Union. He 
 believed it was mismanaging the funds of the nation — interfering 
 with the freedom of elections — controlling the operations of go- 
 vernment — and dangerous to the liberties of the people. Good 
 men and wise men have differed on the question how far this 
 opinion was correct. But all sound judging men will admit that, 
 so long as the president entertained that opinion, the duty of his 
 station required that he should use all the efforts in his power to 
 save the funds and liberties of the people from the threatened dan- 
 ger. Accordingly, he decided that its connexion with the govern- 
 ment should be dissolved, and that, so far as depended upon him, 
 its charter should not be renewed. The political warfare which 
 followed, was as fearful as any he had ever encountered in arms. 
 In the bitterness of the contest, the Senate of the United States 
 pronounced its judgment against him for his measures, in removing 
 the funds of the nation from the vaults of this corporation. But 
 in this, as in every other contest for his country, he proved victo- 
 rious. Under the influence of other counsels, and in accordance 
 with the wishes of the people, expressed through their state legis- 
 latures, the illustrious body which had improvidently prejudged his 
 case, without hearing him, and before he was presented for trial by 
 the representatives of the people, receded from its sentence by a 
 proceeding as decisive as it was remarkable. Whatever difference 
 of opinion may exist in regard to these proceedings, all will per- 
 ceive, in the course of Andrew Jackson, the self-sacrificing spirit 
 — the fearless disregard of danger — and the indomitable energy 
 which always mark the character of a great mind. 
 
 The war with Great Britain and the Indian tribes had involved 
 the nation in many millions of debt, a large amount of which re- 
 mained undischarged when General Jackson became president. 
 But during his administration he had the satisfaction of causing it 
 to be paid to the uttermost farthing. And when he carried to the 
 Hermitage the abiding affections of the people, he left behind the 
 bright spectacle of a great republican government, after an experi- 
 ment of sixty years, free from a national debt ! 
 
 This great patriot was a blessing to his country, in his youth — in 
 his manhood — in his old age — and even in his death ! His early 
 participation in the revolutionary struggle for independence at- 
 tached him to the principles of liberty — and the loneliness of his 
 orphan desolation, which stripped him of every other object of 
 love, concentrated his undivided affections upon his country ; the 
 hardships of his youth enabled him to sustain the storms which 
 assailed his manhood. The storms of his manhood drew the atten- 
 tion of his countrymen to the nature of their free institutions, and 
 made them familiar with the principles by which they were to be 
 perpetuated. When we see the humble orphan boy become a 
 
166 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 mighty ruler, we feel increased attachment to our form of govern- 
 ment, which secures alike to high and low its blessings and its ho- 
 nours. In his old age, he taught the lesson that the man who had 
 occupied the most exalted station in the whole world, was not too 
 proud to become a follower of the " meek and lowly Jesus" — that the 
 spirit which had never quailed to man could bow in meek submis- 
 sion to the will of God ; and that while royalty was seeking his 
 likeness to ornament its halls, and antiquity was surrendering its 
 monuments to adorn his sepulchre, he preferred a simple burial by 
 the side of his deceased companion, to the vain ambition of repos- 
 ing in a sarcophagus, which had preserved the remains of a monarch of 
 the Old World more than a thousand years. He was laid by the 
 side of his wife ! Their hearts were united on earth — their spirits 
 shall mingle in heaven ; and the flowers that bloom over their rest- 
 ing-place shall " blend their sweet perfume together." 
 
 Even in his death there is a blessing. He has taught the Chris- 
 tian how to die ! In the beautiful language of our own chief ma- 
 gistrate, "he descended into the region of death, as a summer sun 
 beneath the western horizon, silently, calmly, brightly, gloriously." 
 
 The sun has indeed descended, but the sky is still bright ! and 
 like its rich reflections, the memory of his noble deeds shall long 
 shed a halo around his illustrious name. 
 
 His death has opened the way to a just decision upon his life. 
 The scythe of time is removing obstructions, and his hour-glass is 
 rapidly measuring out the period when history shall do justice to 
 the life and character of Andrew Jackson. 
 
EULOGY 
 
 DELIVERED AT BOSTON, MASS, JULY 9, 1845, 
 
 BY THE 
 
 HON. PLINY MERRICK. 
 
 We assemble, my fellow-citizens, to mark with impressive and 
 solemn service the loss of the republic in the death of " its most 
 illustrious citizen." The magistrate who served, the hero who de- 
 fended, and the patriot who loved and honoured his country — an 
 old man full of years and of honours, and ripe for the celestial 
 harvest, is gathered to his fathers, and sleeps in the peaceful silence 
 of the grave. The event of which advancing age, and tidings of 
 lingering sickness and increasing infirmity had given warning, and 
 which has long been anticipated as the close of an eventful, ener- 
 getic, and glorious life, now assembles vast multitudes of the peo- 
 ple in all parts of the country to unite in the testimonials of a com- 
 mon and universal bereavement. He who was the object of their 
 pride and devoted affection — whom they had twice advanced to 
 their most elevated office to be the administrator of their laws, and 
 the defender of their liberty — whom they were accustomed to 
 greet with the ardour of friendship, and to cheer with the accla- 
 mations of confiding freemen, has fulfilled his mission of earthly 
 duty, and rests from the cares, the temptations, and triumphs of time. 
 
 Yet this impressive change creates an occasion less fitted to 
 excite emotions of sadness and grief, than to revive, in sober medi- 
 tation, grateful remembrances of a life illustrated by inspiring ex- 
 amples of energy of action, purity of purpose, and distinguished 
 achievements, identified for years with our national history. To 
 such contemplations the hour of funeral solemnity may well be 
 devoted. There is no higher tribute to the memory of a truly 
 great man than a faithful record of the history of his life, and a 
 presentment of a just delineation of his established character. 
 Affection has no dearer theme, and wisdom no nobler counsels than 
 the living actions of departed worth. 
 
168 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 Andrew Jackson, late president of the United States, owes no- 
 thing of his success or celebrity to distinguished birth or adventi- 
 tious circumstances. Originally endowed with a capacity suscep- 
 tible of the most expansive developement, he fashioned for himself 
 and controlled the destiny of his life. He was born in the state 
 of South Carolina, on the 15th of March, 1767, of parents in re- 
 spectable but humble condition of life, who two years before had 
 emigrated from Ireland to the United States. Soon after his birth 
 the death of his father left him in charge of a mother who brought 
 from her native land sentiments of hatred to arbitrary oppression, 
 and reverence for the rights of the great masses of mankind, which 
 she instilled with the gentle but prevailing influence of her sex, 
 into the expanding mind of her child. These maternal instruc- 
 tions were confirmed and strengthened by the prevalent opinion of 
 the times, and during the progress of the war of independence. 
 
 They sunk deep into the mind of the orphan boy; gave direc- 
 tion to the current of his thoughts, and the aspiration of his ambi- 
 tion ; and when, at the age of fourteen, the troops of the royal 
 army under Lord Rawdon, ravaging the fields of Carolina, left to 
 the inhabitants the alternative only of submission or resistance, he 
 flew with youthful enthusiasm to the standard of liberty, and de- 
 voted himself, heart and life, to its defence in the military service 
 of his country. Then, and then only, in the whole course of his 
 career as a soldier' — where lie served and others commanded — he 
 suffered the disadvantages and mortification of defeat. But mis- 
 fortune could check only his career, not conquer the spirit that 
 swelled in his bosom. As fearless in the camp of the enemy as 
 under the folds of his country's banner, no terror could alarm, no 
 force compel him to dishonourable service. He spurned alike the 
 base dictation and the uplifted sword of the English officer by 
 whom it was commanded, and bore to his grave the mark of the 
 deep wound an unarmed boy received in this his first resistance to 
 the attempted oppression and degradation of arbitrary power. 
 
 After his restoration from captivity, by an exchange of prisoners, 
 he commenced his professional studies in the state of North Caro- 
 lina, and was admitted to the bar as a counsellor at law in 1786, 
 and immediately afterwards established himself at Nashville, then 
 constituting a part of the back settlements in that state. He brought 
 with him to this new scene of duties qualifications which insured 
 ultimate success — a clear, sagacious mind, entire devotedness to 
 professional obligation, a sincere and almost passionate love of jus- 
 tice, accompanied by a personal firmness which nothing could 
 divert from its pursuit. He entered with avidity and earnestness 
 into his professional employments, and soon won the confidence 
 and commanded the respect of the community. 
 
 Without the advantages of a liberal education, and with but 
 
Merrick's cii.ogy. 169 
 
 slight opportunities for acquisition at an academical institution, 
 which was broken up and arrested in its course of instruction, and 
 its master and pupils dispersed by the disturbances of the war, we 
 may venture to presume that he who at so early an age commenced 
 his professional practice, and pursued it immediately afterward 
 with eminent ability and success, must not only have been en- 
 dowed with strong and vigorous natural faculties, but must have 
 toiled with diligent industry, and appropriated the circumscribed 
 and limited means at his command with singular felicity. And it 
 may excite a generous emulation to know that against all the dis- 
 advantages of the privation of books and learned instructors, it 
 was in the secluded portion of his life that he obtained much of 
 that exact and complete knowledge of the theory and principles of 
 both national and municipal law, which at a later period, in the 
 numerous exigencies — often perplexing, and sometimes momentous 
 — which demanded their application, were so familiar to his 
 thoughts as to enable him to come to the most prompt as well as 
 most accurate determination. 
 
 So rapid was his progress, and eminent the professional power 
 and capacity he immediately evinced, that two years after his set- 
 tlement at Nashville, when Tennessee, by the cession of North 
 Carolina, was erected into a territory, his reputation attracted the 
 attention of President Washington, by whom he was appointed at- 
 torney for the United States for that district. And with this ap- 
 pointment commenced that extraordinary series of public services 
 which Andrew Jackson so long, so faithfully, and with such bril- 
 liant results, devoted to his country. What singular coincidences 
 ensued! and how felicitous and befitting that his merits should 
 have been thus early discerned, and his public career instituted by 
 him, the first chief magistrate under the constitution, whose prin- 
 ciples he was destined afterwards to uphold, whose warnings to re- 
 iterate, and whose civil and military fame so much to resemble, 
 and so closely to approach ! 
 
 In 1796, the territory of Tennessee was erected into a state, and 
 the people seized the earliest opportunity afforded them at a popular 
 election, to manifest their confidence in Andrew Jackson, and to 
 secure to themselves the benefit of his judgment and counsel. He 
 was chosen a member of the convention, assembled to frame the 
 republican constitution of the state, assumed the duties of the office, 
 and entered upon its discharge with conscientious respect for ils 
 responsibilities, and a deep anxiety firmly to establish those funda- 
 mental principles which are embraced in the comprehensive ex- 
 pression of the "rights of man." The constitution which was 
 established, asserts among its provisions two great and leading propo- 
 sitions, which he always defended as maxims, and followed as the 
 guides of his political life — the inherent, indefeasible, and uncon- 
 15 
 
170 MONtTMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 controllable sovereignty of the people, and the injustice and enor- 
 mity of perpetuities and monopolies — those insidious and cruel in- 
 strumentalities by which the prosperity of the many has been sub- 
 jugated to the unjust advancement of the few — the bane of peace, 
 and of all private, and therefore of all national prosperity. 
 
 The constitution was established, and Tennessee was admitted a 
 member of the Union : and Andrew Jackson was elected her first 
 representative in the popular branch of the national legislature. A 
 single year only elapsed, when, by a new election, he was trans- 
 ferred to the Senate. He retained his position as a member of this 
 body till 1799, when, intending to retire wholly to private life, he 
 sent in his resignation and withdrew from the Senate. But scarcely 
 had he left his political situation when, not only without solicitation, 
 but without any knowledge on his part that such a purpose existed, he 
 was appointed to the highest judicial situation in Tennessee — a 
 judge of the Supreme Court of the state. They who had witnessed 
 his earnestness and ability at the bar, his gravity and wisdom in the 
 senate, his fidelity and conscientiousness in every undertaking, knew 
 the power and resources he would carry to the bench, and how truly 
 the scales of justice would be balanced by his independent judg- 
 ment and luminous understanding. He accepted this high judicial 
 office with much personal reluctance, and after a brief period, 
 anxious to relieve himself from the responsibilities of all public 
 employments, he tendered his resignation and withdrew to the 
 occupation of his private pursuits. 
 
 When, shortly after his retirement from the bench, he was, most 
 unexpectedly to himself, elected to the office of major-general of a 
 division of the militia of Tennessee, he regarded the acceptance of 
 his military commission as scarcely a deviation from his determina- 
 tion to remain in the seclusion of his private employments. Yet 
 it constituted in fact one of the most important points in his pro- 
 gress towards the consummation of those great ends of usefulness 
 and honour — of civil and military renown, to which he was destined 
 ultimately to attain. But though the magnitude of the consequences 
 which were involved in his acceptance of military office was 
 neither foreseen nor appreciated, he would permit himself to bold 
 none, the duties of which he did not fully and faithfully qualify 
 himself to discharge ; and though for years little more was neces- 
 sarily required of" him than the maintenance of the formalities of 
 a military organization and a general superintendence of his division, 
 he lost no opportunity of possessing himself of all knowledge ap- 
 propriate to his situation : and, therefore, when the hour of trial, 
 of action, and laborious and perilous duty arrived, he was all fitted 
 - d prepared — armed and panoplied lor the service — filled with 
 knowledge, imbued with power — strengthened by a heart which 
 had no beatings in his bosom but for honour and his country. 
 
Merrick's eulogy. 171 
 
 After the declaration of war against Great Britain in 1812, Gene- 
 ral Jackson entered the service of the government as a major-gene- 
 ral of his division in the Tennessee militia, and continued to act 
 under that authority until 1814, when he was appointed io the 
 same rank in the army of the United States. 
 
 Constantly in service during the whole period of the war, his 
 military genius was developed in a long series of engagements, in 
 which success everywhere attended his banner. New lights broke 
 in irom the fires of his camp through clouds of disappointment and 
 disaster, and the hopes of the country were revived under the 
 military success of a general whose training had been at the bar, in 
 the Senate, and on the judicial bench. Appeals from the suffer- 
 ing inhabitants of the frontier, upon whom was waging the merci- 
 less hostility of savage warfare, first called forth the demonstrations 
 of his military enterprise and capacity ; and he immediately dis- 
 played all the qualities of a consummate commander. Encounter- 
 ing difficulties of every possible description — fatigue, suffering, 
 famine, mutiny — he never quailed before their separate or united 
 power; but, inexhaustible in resource, indomitable in perseverance, 
 resolved at all hazards to wrench the tomahawk from the hands of 
 the barbarian, his guiding genius and command were everywhere 
 successful. His eagle eye detected the plans, followed the trails, 
 and discovered the ambuscades of his subtle foe. Revolt trembled 
 back into the obedient ranks of his army before the rebuke of his 
 haughty indignation, and his march in the forest was a perpetual 
 triumph, until the multiplying hordes of savage warriors were sub- 
 dued and vanquished, until their fires were all out, and savage fero- 
 city bent in supplication for the mercies of peace. 
 
 But the skill, the intrepidity, the genius, and the commanding 
 faculties of General Jackson, remained yet to be tested on a broader 
 field and in a more noble and exalted conflict. The wars of Europe 
 were just ended in the subjugation of the colossal soldier of France ; 
 and England, relieved from the enormous burdens she had borne in 
 the long agony of her struggle with Napoleon, was suddenly enabled 
 to concentrate a vast combination of her military and naval forces 
 in the Gulf of Mexico, in the prosecution of her contest with the 
 United States. Transported, as she could scarcely fail to be, with 
 her mighty triumphs on the continent, she withdrew her gallant 
 legions from the Peninsula, and sent them across the Atlantic, as she 
 confidently anticipated, to an assured and easy victory over the great 
 commercial metropolis of the South. New Orleans was already, 
 not merely in her hostility, but in her deliberate belief, a doomed 
 city. The characteristic confidence of her people was never 
 startled by the anticipation of any possible occurrence which would 
 overwhelm her forces in utter discomfiture and defeat. But the 
 hour was already near. General Jackson was ordered by the go- 
 
172 MONUMENT TO JACK;ON. 
 
 vernment to the defence of New Orleans. Hastily summoning 
 such portions of the militia as he could call into the service, and 
 rallying to his aid his old companions, the gallant volunteers of 
 Tennessee and Kentucky, he descended the Mississippi. On his 
 arrival at the city, he found everything in a state of destitution, 
 confusion, and despair. The whole force which he was able to 
 command was most inadequate in numbers, in discipline, in organi- 
 zation, to meet the veteran host they were summoned to oppose. 
 Such was the condition of the surrounding country that the inva- 
 ders had only to choose what position they would occupy in the 
 commencement of their operations, and they might immediately 
 make it their own. There was literally nothing to prevent or in- 
 terrupt the disembarkation of the army from the fleet of the 
 enemy. Not a rampart protected the city from its approach with- 
 out, while within, intestine division between the different races of 
 its inhabitants, combining with the timidity of some and the 
 treachery of others, had nearly destroyed all concord, paralyzed all 
 strength, and rendered all hope of a successful defence a vain and 
 idle delusion. 
 
 The penetrating glance of the commander surve} r ed every peril 
 which surrounded his position, and, comprehending at once its 
 extent and his responsibility, he vigorously commenced his opera- 
 tions. If an ordinary mind would have been overwhelmed by the 
 overawing and complicated embarrassments with which he was 
 surrounded, it but redoubled the energies and reinspired the genius 
 of the invincible commander, who was determined to save the city 
 from conquest or sink with his country's banner on the plains 
 before it. Sacrificing without hesitation every minor consideration, 
 and tremblingly alive to whatever might be demanded from his 
 efforts, he bent all the faculties of his gigantic spirit, and strained 
 to its utmost tension every nerve in his physical system, to the 
 accomplishment of his lofty duty. Trusting nothing that could be 
 controlled to the hazard of chance, he made all his dispositions 
 with the utmost precision and exactness. He renovated everything 
 around him. The treachery of the base was confounded ; the ar- 
 dent and patriotic were reinvigorated with nt w and nobler zeal. 
 Never were more sagacious preparations made, never more wearing 
 hardship endured by a military commander. Perceiving the neces- 
 sity of carrying consternation into the ranks of the enemy, and of 
 inspiring Confidence in those of his friends, he made immediate 
 arrangements for an attack upon a large body of the English army, 
 now occupying a position on the banks of the Mississippi ; and the 
 blazing fires of the night-battle of the 23d of December, waking 
 the invaders from their false security, and rousing his countrymen 
 to an invisible ecstasy, made it but a prelude, sure and crrtain, to 
 the glorious and indescribable victory of the 8th of January. I am 
 
merrick's eulogy. 173 
 
 unaccustomed to the language of strategy, and unacquainted with 
 the terms of its science ; but I know that on that memorable day 
 an illustrious benefactor wrought out the great work which stands 
 forth, the proudest triumph that adorns the annals of his country. 
 And an army overwhelmed, outmatching his own in numbers, in 
 discipline, equipment, experience — in all but in valour and patriot- 
 ism ; the salvation of a city from the carnage, debauchery, and 
 plunder of a successful enemy, accomplished, it may almost be said, 
 without a blood-stain on the garments of his own troops, establish 
 the military renown of the hero of New Orleans on an imperisha- 
 ble foundation ; and the bare remembrance of the joyful acclama- 
 tions with which he was universally welcomed back from his field 
 of fame, suppresses the voice of all commendation, and renders all 
 the phrases of eulogy tame and superfluous. 
 
 Yet once again the military prowess of their honoured chieftain 
 is demanded in the service of his country. Its peace is once more 
 disturbed by the piercing war-cry from the wilder .less, and murder- 
 ous bands of the Seminole Indians, incited by the bad men of ana 
 country, and supported by the perfidy and armed fortunes of an- 
 other, raise the tomahawk against the peaceful settlers of the fron- 
 tier, the industrious inhabitants of the hamlet and the farm-house. 
 Jackson marches to their relief, and with a vigour and in a spirit 
 all his own, begins, pursues, and terminates the war with triumph- 
 ant celerity, success, and completeness. Every part of its conduct 
 was accomplished with a military intrepidity and moral fearlessness 
 worthy of the conqueror of the Creeks and the victor of New Or- 
 leans, which secured the cordial approbation of the government, 
 and found its encomium at once and defence in that masterly de- 
 spatch of another most distinguished citizen to the minister of 
 Spain, which has scarcely a rival in eloquence or moral sublimity 
 in all our national diplomacy. 
 
 The military career of Andrew Jackson is now brought to its 
 close. Peace was restored to his country throughout all its extent, 
 and upon all ite borders; and the victorious soldier sheathes the 
 sword which he has borne from victory to victory. In 1818, he 
 resigned his commission in the army, and rejoiced once more to 
 retire to the tranquillity of his farm at Nashville. But he could 
 not hope for its protracted enjoyment, since such transcendent suc- 
 cess could not long be unattended by imperative calls from his 
 fellow-citizens for renewed public service. Upon the incorpora- 
 tion of Florida with the United States, after the treaty of its ces- 
 sion with Spain, and its establishment as a national "territory, he 
 was appointed its governor by President Monroe, and proceeded to 
 the discharge of his important and delicate duties in taking posse-s- 
 sion of the territory, receiving and protecting the archives from 
 tli • officers of Spain, and organizing and establishing the territorial 
 15* 
 
174 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 government under the laws of Congress. Having accomplished the 
 objects which he had in view in accepting the appointment, he 
 early tendered his resignation and retired from the territory. 
 
 In 1824, he was again elected a senator in Congress from Ten- 
 nessee, and once more took his seat in the highest branch of the 
 legislative department of the government : but having been for- 
 mally nominated by the legislature of that state as a candidate for 
 the office of president of the United States, and having consented 
 to the nomination, he deemed it incompatible with the new relation 
 he occupied towards the people, to continue a member of the na- 
 tional legislature, and he tendered his resignation and withdrew 
 from office. 
 
 Towards the close of the administration of President Monroe, the 
 asperity of political feeling had become much smoothed and sub- 
 dued ; and in the progress of time and change of circumstances, 
 the lines of party division were obscured or neglected in a tolerant 
 and general amalgamation. In such a state of things, it is not sur- 
 prising that different interests, sectional partiality, and personal 
 preference should have prevented that concert and union of action 
 in the election of his successor which may be commanded and 
 relied on in a period of more fixed and determinate division of po- 
 litical parties. The result corresponded with what might have 
 been anticipated. Such was the division of the votes of the elec- 
 toral colleges, that no choice was effected by the people, and the 
 election having devolved upon the House of Representatives, voting 
 by states, resulted in the elevation of a distinguished citizen of 
 Massachusetts to the chief magistracy of the Union. 
 
 During the four years of the administration which ensued, mea- 
 sures of great public interest, involving political and constitutional 
 principles of momentous consideration and importance, attracted 
 the attention of the people ; and the intensply contested canvass 
 of 1828, terminated in the election of Andrew Jackson to the pre- 
 sidency. On the 4th of March, 1829, he entered upon the dis- 
 charge of its duties: and having faithfull}' sustained himself in the 
 execution of the high trust committed to his hands, and secured 
 the warm and hearty approbation of a majority of the people, in 
 1832 he was re-elected for a second term, and closed his public 
 life at its termination, on the 3d of March, 1837. 
 
 The administration of President Jackson is one of the most 
 marked and prominent periods in the political history of our coun- 
 try. Profoundly impressed with a sense of the weight and magni- 
 tude of the office, he assumed its responsibilities by a zealous dedi- 
 cation of his ability to its requirements ; and he commenced the 
 performance of its trusts and obligations with characteristic fear- 
 lessness and energy. While he felt that "the demonstration of 
 public sent i mail had inscribed great tasks on the list of official duty 
 
merrick's eulogy. 175 
 
 in characters too legible to be overlooked," and was resolved to pay 
 all possible respect to the manifestations of the popular will, he 
 distinctly perceived the exact position he was to occupy among the 
 functionaries of the government ; and declared that, " in adminis- 
 tering the laws of Congress, he should keep steadily in view the 
 limitations as well as the extent of executive power." Guarding 
 that indispensable department from all encroachment upon its effi- 
 cacy and independence, he clearly recognised the fact that it was 
 created, preserved, and restrained only by the positive grants and 
 interdictions of constitutional provisions ; and that, with all his 
 loftiness of elevation and magnitude of trust, the first officer of the 
 republic was yet but the representative and servant of the people, 
 accountable to them that the powers of this office were neither 
 marred by the degradation of innovation upon its authority, nor 
 dishonoured by the enlargements of unlawful assumption. 
 
 It is not to be disguised that his administration was illustrated by 
 a severe and intense opposition. It is in the very nature of free 
 institutions that the operations of government should be watched 
 with the eye of a keen and jealous vigilance ; and much may be 
 pardoned to the spirit of liberty if that watchfulness, in its gene- 
 rous ardour, sometimes aggravates itself into a seemingly harsh and 
 vindictive resistance. It is this privilege of perpetual watchful- 
 ness — this unrestricted right of questioning the exercise of power 
 and authority with a stern and unequivocal independence, which con- 
 stitutes and establishes the freedom of a people united in the bonds 
 of a political organization. And in a community occupying a ter- 
 ritory of such vast extent and expansion as our own, stretching 
 from the icy shores of the north to the orange groves of the south, 
 and spreading daily into the almost illimitable wilderness of their 
 national domain — with interests most varied — with domestic insti- 
 tutions dissimilar and almost incongruous — combining with the per- 
 plexities of personal interest and the irritation of personal disap- 
 pointment — it will always be, as it always has been, that the most 
 beneficent action of government will, in some quarter or other, 
 excite temporary discontent, and provoke an opposition too vehe- 
 ment to admit of an immediate and universal appreciation of its 
 merits. In this inevitable concomitant of the purest and wisest of 
 human efforts, the administration of Andrew Jackson but shared 
 the fate of those of all his illustrious predecessors, over which the 
 same cloud was once cast, dimming for a season, in his own expres- 
 sive language, even "the lights that flow from the mind that 
 founded and the mind that reformed our system." 
 
 But in the midst of conflicting opinions relative to the political 
 expediency or even the constitutional soundness of some of his mea- 
 sures, justice will at least accord to the head of the administration 
 great vigour in the pursuit of whatever was in accordance with his 
 
176 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 opinions, and an undoubted integrity of purpose in their adoption 
 And leaving the heated controversies of the past to the considera- 
 tion of other times more remote from the ardour of that excitement 
 which may not yet have all been soothed into rest — when the pas- 
 sion that disturbs, the interest that warps, and the prejudice that 
 confounds the judgment, shall no longer interpose their misguiding 
 influences, a grateful people may unite in a common homage of 
 veneration for the great civilian, in remembrance of his unques- 
 tioned principles, and those more signal services which commanded 
 the rewards of an almost universal respect and approbation. 
 
 The great object which Andrew Jackson proposed to himself in 
 his civil administration was to maintain and strengthen the repub- 
 lican institutions of his country ; for above all other forms of p ■ 
 litical organization he believed them capable of advancing the re- 
 finements and elevation of civilization, the hopes of liberty, a 
 the rights of mankind. In his judgment "there are no necessa 
 evils in government. Its evils exist in its abuses. If it woi 
 confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rail 
 shower its favours alike on the high and the low, the rich and t 
 poor, it would be an unqualified blessing." His great princip 
 was equality of right — equal diffusion of favour — of protection — i 
 opportunity of enjoyment to all under the genial influence of r 
 publican institutions; and therefore, regardless of all the tempt 
 tions of power, the insinuations of favouritism, and the delusioi 
 of the flattering promises of partial and temporary expedients, h 
 strove " to increase the value and prolong the duration of Amer 
 can liberty, by a strict observance of the sacred charter of the cor. 
 stitution, the supremacy of the laws enacted in conformity to il 
 provisions, and the preservation of the federal Union." For thi 
 purpose he studied the provisions of the constitution in a spirit o 
 liberal and enlightened investigation, and arrived at his conclusion 
 of what was a just and true construction to be given to all its parts 
 only after first acquiring a thorough acquaintance with its contem 
 poraneous history, the objects sought to be attained in its formation 
 and the wants of the people whose rights it was intended to secure 
 and protect. 
 
 Discriminating, with a keen and close observation, between the 
 powers which it conferred and those which were reserved to the 
 states, he would allow no possible consideration either to diminish 
 or enlarge its grants, its prohibitions, or injunctions. While he 
 held with a grasp which nothing could unloose the entire measure 
 and uttermost reach of its authority, he stood like an armed senti- 
 nel ready to repel with his utmost force every encroachment, by 
 ingenious and plausible construction, beyond its limits. In this 
 scrupulous observance of all its mandates, whether of action or 
 forbearance, his determination was resolute, and his vigilance never 
 
merrick's eulogy. 177 
 
 tired. He used, with a freedom which knew no limits, because 
 none were prescribed in the instrument by which it was given, the 
 executive power of control over every act of legislation which he 
 deemed an infringement or abuse of its authority. And his presi- 
 dential vetoes, unfolding his principles, expounding his doctrines, 
 and defending his opinions, are at once among the most animated 
 and convincing of all his productions, and shed lights upon branches 
 of the great body of constitutional law, than which nothing can 
 be found more luminous or masterly in the elaborate disquisitions 
 of statesmen and jurists. 
 
 Laws constitutionally enacted he held, like the great charter 
 
 itself, to be superior and unquestionable : and he felt bound at once 
 
 *VJobey, and coerce the obedience of others to all their requisitions. 
 
 '5§ey represented, in his mind, the will of the people, which he 
 
 yarded as the great sovereignty from which only could emanate 
 
 y just human authority ; and, identified with them in every 
 
 Dught of his heart, it was not less against his nature than the 
 
 nvictions of his understanding to oppose the lawfully expressed 
 
 anifestations of their will. 
 
 The supremacy of the law was therefore, with him, an inborn, 
 
 grained, indwelling principle. He loved and worshipped liberty ; 
 
 xt it was liberty guarded, restrained, enlivened, and protected by 
 
 itablished law; and that which rises in rebellion against its guide, 
 
 .- grows wanton and licentious in its prostration ; for such laws he 
 
 ved or could lay down his life ; and to its universal observance 
 
 e gave always the devotion of his official superintendence, and 
 
 3e more precious and prevailing influence of his personal exam- 
 
 >le. Its illustrations mark every vicissitude of his existence, and 
 
 rowd every page of his history. Never, in all the passages of 
 
 ime, was there a sublimer spectacle of obedience to law than when 
 
 le, the hero of New Orleans, almost in the moment of his proudest 
 
 'ictory, laid down the sword he had drawn for his country on the 
 
 dtar of its justice, and though he deemed it most unjust, cheerfully 
 
 oaid the legal penalty of alleged transgression. Who, who does 
 
 lot rejoice that a grateful country has reversed the judgment of its 
 
 :ourt, and wiped out for ever the painful imputation of its record? 
 
 For the preservation of the federal Union, no magistrate ever 
 
 "made nobler exertions, or brought to its support wiser counsels of 
 
 tithe understanding, or purer emotions of the heart. The first of 
 
 duties, it was first also in his affections: and his administration 
 
 is immortalized in the glory and triumph of its defence. Union, 
 
 the union of the states, was with him an object of unceasing hope, 
 
 unmeasured trust, and commanding veneration. All his efforts, 
 
 plans, measures, were designed to secure its unmarred integrity. 
 
 He guarded it with simple but imposing dignity of deportment 
 
 against all aggression or injustice from abroad ; and with paternal 
 
178 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 solicitude, but inflexible resolution, against combinations formed, 
 and danger threatening its disruption from within. 
 
 Upon his accession to the chief magistracy, the government was 
 perplexed with the embarrassment of numerous long-standing and 
 complicated causes of complaint against foreign nations, arising 
 chiefly from their unlawful aggressions during the violent wars in 
 which all Europe had been involved. 
 
 The president resolved that such annoyances should cease to 
 exist. He ascertained, with the utmost precision and exactness, 
 what was the claim of justice and of truth ; and for that, and that 
 only, he asked ; but he asked in tones of demand which would 
 brook no denial. Refusing to move in the tortuous course of an 
 insidious and hypocritical diplomacy, he followed the advice and 
 imitated the example of Washington, in the adoption of u the im- 
 mutable principles of private morality" as the only foundation of 
 all his official intercourse or communication with other nations. 
 He would "ask for nothing that was not clearly right, and would 
 submit to nothing that was wrong." 
 
 Acting upon this true, this enduring, this republican principle, 
 his demands could be neither evaded, unanswered, nor repelled. 
 And he thus procured an honourable restitution to be accorded by 
 the just, and by steady perseverance forced a compliance with the 
 requirements of equity from the reluctant and unwilling ; and all 
 these causes of vexatious disturbance were finally removed by ad- 
 justments, equitable and satisfactory ; whilst amid all the compli- 
 cated and protracted negotiations by which such results were ac- 
 complished, the honour and faith of the country were preserved 
 untarnished ; and its peace, undisturbed, was secure in the termi- 
 nation of disputes, and the restoration and prevalence of sentiments 
 only of concord and harmony. Yet, however grateful were these 
 results, or just and appropriate the means used for their attainment, 
 the accomplishment even of such objects was often attended with 
 difficulty, and sometimes with peril ; and once, at least, when the 
 jealous sensibility of France hesitated in the path of justice, the 
 signs of war became visible in the horizon, and the lofty attitude 
 and inflexible resolution of the president, seemed to render its oc- 
 currence inevitable. 
 
 It was then that an eloquent opponent of his administration, now 
 returning with distinguished honour from a foreign embassy, said 
 on the floor of Congress — " Sir, if the president will so temper his 
 policy as to carry this country honourably through the controversy 
 without a war, he will draw upon his head the blessings of men 
 whose voices have never mingled with the incense of his flatterers; 
 and his name in the eyes of all mankind will appear fairer and 
 brighter than when he came out from the blazing lines of New 
 Orleans, in all the freshness of his victory and its honours." The 
 
merrick's eulogy. 179 
 
 war teas averted, and the honour of the country was preserved 
 without a stain or a spot on its shield ; and the hope and prediction 
 of eloquence were both realized together. The most chivalrous 
 of nations retired from her position-. The irresistible policy of 
 justice averted all peril from the Union, and added new titles of 
 renown to the fame of its venerable chief; and the blessings of the 
 generation who witnessed the bravery of his resolution, and of the 
 generation who mourn his death, have flown, and will flow con- 
 tinually in an unbroken stream upon his head. 
 
 But the republic may receive deeper wounds than foreign foes 
 can inflict with all their armaments. Fleets and armies encoun- 
 tered at the shore, or met upon its borders, may be beheld without 
 dismay ; for the soil that sustains a unittd people, struggling for 
 the liberties of their country, the endearments of its home, and the 
 consecrated altars of its worship, will not long endure the footsteps 
 of a foreign foe. War with other nations, calamitous as it is even 
 in its most favoured aspects, has yet its redeeming circumstances in 
 attendance upon its progress. The conflict of defence gives new 
 value to national possession, unfolds great virtues, exalts the senti- 
 ments of patriotism, and the triumph of arms and the brilliancy 
 of victory become the pledges and security of peace. But the 
 warfare of intestine feuds and domestic convulsion is an unmiti- 
 gated evil ; its corruptions canker the heart and consume the vitals 
 of the community ; and it must be suppressed, or its end inevitably 
 is national dissolution, with all the miseries of private calamity and 
 public dishonour. 
 
 Undoubtedly by far the most important and alarming political 
 questions which have ever arisen under the constitution since its 
 adoption, were those created by the measures pursued by South Ca- 
 rolina during the administration of President Jackson, in resistance 
 of the laws of the United States for the collection of its revenue. 
 
 Not claiming to exercise that great fundamental popular right 
 which precedes and underlies all constitutions and forms of govern- 
 ment — that incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to re- 
 form, alter, or totally change the government when their protection, 
 safety, prosperity, and happiness require it — South Carolina insisted 
 that under the constitution, and in strict conformity to the terms 
 upon which she had entered the Union, and to her obligation to the 
 rest of the United States, it was competent for her people to de- 
 nounce a law of Congress as unconstitutionl, null and void, and to pro- 
 hibit all execution of its provisions within the limits of her territory. 
 And in pursuance of this extravagant assumption, a popular conven- 
 tion, assembled in conformity to an act of her legislature, assumed 
 the tremendous responsibility of abolishing the obnoxious law, and 
 of placing the state in an attitude of open, direct, and undisguised 
 hostility to the general government. 
 
180 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 Never could there be in the history of an ardent, generous, and 
 free people, a crisis of more thrilling interest or portentous disaster 
 than this ; but never could there have been found a magistrate better 
 fitted for so terrible an emergency than Andrew Jackson. In the 
 gravity of his wisdom he paused in the reflection that the prosperity 
 and happiness of the existing and of unborn generations, under a 
 constitution establishing the freest government on earth, bound to- 
 gether in the bonds of a political union cemented with the blood 
 of a noble and self-sacrificing ancestry, depended upon his decision, 
 his prudence, his counsel, and his strength. He examined all the 
 questions involved in the great controversy with the most thorough 
 and searching scrutiny, in ever} r aspect in which they could be con- 
 sidered, in every light in which they could be presented. And 
 throwing himself into the arms of the people, and relying upon 
 their stability in virtue, and loyalty in patriotism, he issued, in the 
 form of a proclamation, one of the most remarkable papers ever 
 addressed by a government to its citizens. Demolishing the sophis- 
 try of opposing arguments, and unfolding with the utmost clearness 
 the true principles of constitutional union, he appealed, with all 
 the earnestness that danger could inspire, and all the affection that 
 could warm the heart of a father, to the generous and manly people 
 of his native state to abandon the mad project of disunion, and re- 
 unite with their fellow-citizens in lawful and constitutional measures 
 for the redress of all real or apprehended grievances. 
 
 But finally, he announced his unalterable determination, upon 
 their refusal to comply with their constitutional obligations, to en- 
 force the execution of the laws thev had assumed to annul, at the 
 hazard of every consequence. His simple but authoritative man- 
 date — " the Union, it must be preserved" — came like sunshine 
 through the cloud, like the benignant light of the guiding star 
 through the mists of ocean to the anxious mariner tossed on its bil- 
 lows. The effect was electrical, grand, and decisive. The ranks 
 of opposition swayed away from their organization, and every de- 
 fender of the constitution rushed to the rampart to stand by its noble 
 and fearless representative. The voices of congratulation, of defence, 
 of compromise, mingled together, and the thanksgivings for a 
 Union preserved went up once more from the hearts of a united 
 people. 
 
 It is of the glory of Washington, that he impressed upon his 
 countrymen, in language worthy to be uttered by the father of his 
 country, the value of our national Union — urging upon them " to 
 think and speak of it as the palladium of their political safety and 
 prosperity, watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety, and 
 indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of any attempt to 
 alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the 
 sacred ties which now link together the various parts." But An- 
 
 
Merrick's eixogy. 181 
 
 drew Jackson lived in the times which the prophetic eye of his 
 illustrious predecessor foresaw were among the possibilities of future 
 disaster; and it is of his glory to have practically exemplified the 
 exhortation of Washington by an actual salvation of the Union in 
 its integrity against the most formidable and dangerous combination 
 concerted for its destruction. The hopes for its perpetual duration 
 were never brighter than when his eye cast its last glance on the 
 prosperity of his country. 
 
 The serene tranquillity of the years of his declining age are in 
 touching contrast with the fervid energy of his life of public em- 
 ployment. He turned, when that employment was past, with 
 thankful gladness back to the home of his youth and his affection, 
 to seek in its seclusion, repose from the pressure of constant care 
 and unremitted excitement. With what just satisfaction might the 
 venerable patriot look back from the sequestered shades of the Her- 
 mitage, upon a life of such service ! so true to his country ! so en- 
 nobled by illustrious achievement ! With animating recollections 
 of the past, and a heart always beating for the welfare of the people 
 he served, his old age was sustained by the consolations of friend- 
 ship, and the unfailing hope of a religious trust. The plaudits of 
 his hour of glory were softened into benignant benedictions at his 
 tomb. 
 
 His character is developed in the history of his life. Andrew 
 Jackson was undoubtedly one of the most remarkable of the great 
 men of his age. In all the relations of life, he presented mani- 
 festations which marked his pre-eminence, and assured his ascen- 
 dency. From a childhood, which in its origin gave no promise of 
 advancement, he rose to the highest stations of military command 
 and civil authority, and the magnificence of the soldier was tran- 
 scended only by the majestic successes' of the statesman. His patri- 
 otism knew no bounds but his country ; and the hope, the joy, the 
 ambition of his heart, all centred in its prosperity, under the ever- 
 lasting Union of the states. 
 
 If you would honour his memory, remember that great lesson of 
 his love and affection, and devote yourselves to the preservation of 
 the Union ; knowing that your efforts in its behalf are the noblest 
 manifestations of your cherished attachment to the counsels of his 
 life. Teach to your children its history ; and bid them emulate the 
 bright examples of the heroes, the statesmen, and patriots who have 
 gone before them. The avenues of the citadel of strength and 
 posts of honour, are open to universal competition. The freedom- 
 giving institutions of our country call to her highest honours her 
 children from the workshop, the city, and the farm. 
 
 This is the history of the past and the prognostic of the future 
 The youthful Washington was but a surveyor of land ; the philoso- 
 phy of Franklin started with his apprenticeship in a printing office; 
 16 
 
182 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 Andrew Jackson was an almost uneducated orphan boy of the 
 wilderness ; the hosts of the illustrious dead, and the ranks of living 
 eminence have come, if there be such a thing in our glorious 
 country, from the humblest origin. No man knows to what destiny 
 his son shall succeed ; but knowing that he may rise to the highest 
 — that his career may inscribe the deepest lines that shall shade or 
 adorn his country, let the purest patriotism be instilled into his 
 bosom, and inspire the dawning vision of his expanding faculties. 
 
 So shall the Union — the glorious and time-honoured Union of the 
 United States — be preserved and sustained, and sent on, a combina- 
 tion of power — a spectacle of heart-cheering magnificence, and an 
 inexhaustible fountain of blessings to succeeding posterity ; that 
 when age after age the fathers shall be sleeping in silence, there 
 shall be, for ever, a generation of sons to rally under the spreading 
 folds of its glorious banner, to defend and enjoy their inheritance 
 of freedom. 
 
EULOGY 
 
 DELIVERED AT PETERSBURG, VA , JULY 12, 1845, 
 
 BY 
 
 HUGH A. GARLAND, Esq. 
 
 The solemn toll of funeral bells — the loud peal of the minute- 
 gun, now echoing in our ears, announce that this is no ordinary 
 occasion that brings us together. It is in truth no common event 
 we have come to commemorate. One of the great actors of the 
 world's history has ceased to act. The part it was the destiny of 
 Andrew Jackson to perform in the drama of human life, has been 
 fully, perfectly, nobly performed, and he has received his permis- 
 sion to depart. 
 
 Those that have seen him will see him no more. Those who 
 have never beheld his manly form and venerable white locks, can 
 never hope to enjoy that pleasure. What of mortal was in him has 
 put on immortality. Henceforth his name will rank among those 
 who have wrought as master-workmen in the field of time, and 
 made the world's history such as it is and not otherwise. 
 
 Had he never lived, the recorded deeds of his own times would 
 have been far different from what they are known to be : and the 
 history of the future, which is but the developement and result of 
 the past and the present, would not have been what it will be — 
 deeply stamping the impress of his character and genius on the 
 age in which he lived — his words and deeds, now that he is dead, 
 garnered up in the treasury of histoty, and pregnant with the 
 germ of vitality, are destined to grow, and multiply, and bring 
 forth fruit for all ages to come. 
 
 Who, then, was Andrew Jackson ? 
 
 Fathers and sons, give heed to what I say — mothers and daugh- 
 ters, lend me your attention! It is of no ordinary man I speak, 
 nor is it for the dead I speak, — but the living. Were it permitted 
 those who have once shaken off this mortal coil again to return 
 and take part in the affairs of those they loved, Andrew Jackson 
 
 (183) 
 
184 
 
 MONIMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 would now, in bodily presence as he is in spirit, be in the midst of 
 this assembly, praying that what may be uttered this day, shall be 
 blessed to your good. 
 
 He of whom we speak began life a poor boy. He wrought out 
 his fortune and fame by his own valiant right arm, unaided by 
 aught else save the kind providence of God. He was the son of 
 poor Irish emigrants, who in the wilderness of America sought a 
 home and refuge from the grinding exactions of an oppressor, 
 whose iron heel had trodden down their own Erin Isle, and made 
 it, for many generations, a land of violence and blood. 
 
 Andrew, the youngest of three sons, was born on the adopted 
 soil of his father. But he never knew the value of a fat he r's care. 
 While he was yet an infant, his widowed mother, left alone in a 
 strange land, had devolved on her the care of three helpless 
 children. 
 
 At the age of thirteen, Andrew Jackson was not, like the boys 
 of our day, engaged in some school or academy, learning Greek and 
 Latin, and mathematics, storing his mind with knowledge, and pre- 
 paring himself for future usefulness. He was in the field, not the 
 corn-field or wheat-field, reaping the fruits of honest industry, but 
 in the battle-field, fighting in defence of his country. 
 
 The boy of thirteen, with sword and gun, rode by the side of 
 Marion, and Davie, and Sumter, renowned leaders, whose deeds of 
 daring are familiar to the youngest child that hears me. Those 
 heroic men, by their valour and fortitude, filled the world with 
 admiration, and called back in imagination the age of chivalry and 
 romance, yet they did not surpass the heroism and fortitude of their 
 youthful companion. It was no common M-ar in which he was 
 called to engage, in the Waxhaw Settlement. It was a civil war, 
 indeed — a war of extermination, in which neighbour practised 
 on neighbour such deeds of cruelty as would have put the Creeks 
 or Cherokees to shame. Those who in former days had set in 
 the shadow of his mother's door, broken bread at her hospitable 
 hoard, and spoken words of neighbourly kindness to her widowed 
 heart, now sought to wrap her humble dwelling in flames, and to 
 take the life of her fatherless children. The patriot soldier dared 
 not visit his own home, and seek an hour's repose in the bosom of 
 his family, without a body-guard to protect him from the assault of 
 his tory neighbours. On one such occasion, Andrew Jackson and 
 his brother Robert, with four or five others, volunteered to stand 
 guard for Captain Lands, while he sought a night's repose with his 
 family. At midnight, when all were asleep, having no immediate 
 apprehension of an attack, a party of tories, divided into platoons, 
 approached the house in front and rear. One wakeful soldier, hear- 
 ing a noise, went out and saw the party approaching in front. Run- 
 
garland's eulogy. 185 
 
 ning back in terror, he seized Andrew Jackson by the hair, ex- 
 claiming, "The tories are upon us!" 
 
 Jackson sprang up, ran out to the front door, and challenged the 
 approaching party. Again he challenged — but no answer — he 
 fired — his fire was returned by a volley from the whole platoon. 
 The soldier by his side fell dead — he retreated to the door, and 
 with two others defended it to the last extremity. Both his com- 
 panions fell ; but he stood unhurt, fighting to the last. A fortunate 
 circumstance caused the enemy to retreat, and the young hero had 
 the satisfaction to know that his promptness and valour had saved 
 his friend from assassination, and the family and property of his 
 friend from insult and destruction. Delightful foretaste of that 
 greater bliss which was to fill his joyful heart, when in his tri- 
 umphal march he trod upon the roses scattered in his path by the 
 rescued maidens of New Orleans ! 
 
 On another occasion, when a band of patriots were waiting at the 
 Waxhaw meeting-house for some of their companions, they saw a 
 party approaching that they took to be friends ; but, on a nearer 
 view, discovered them to be tories in citizen's dress, with a body 
 of British dragoons in rear. Many by this stratagem were cap- 
 tured. But Robert and Andrew Jackson, light boys with brave 
 hearts, on fleet horses made their escape through the woods and 
 swamps. They stayed out all night, and on entering a house next 
 day, in search of something to eat, were surrounded by the dra- 
 goons and taken prisoners. While there, a British officer, a dis- 
 grace to his name and profession, demanded of Andrew Jackson to 
 perform an ignominious office, which he indignantly refused. Boys! 
 what would you have done in his situation ? A helpless captive, 
 in the hands of ruthless soldiers — an insolent officer, with bent 
 brows and uplifted sword, demanding of you to clean his boots 
 — what would you have done? In such helplessness, and with 
 such threatening danger overhanging you, would you not have 
 slunk away, and quietly cleaned the mud from the boots of your 
 insolent captor ? Not so Andrew Jackson ! Boy as he was — de- 
 fenceless as he was, he scornfully refused ;. demanding to be treated 
 with the respect due to a prisoner of war and a gentleman. Did 
 the British officer receive with admiration that act of heroism, and 
 extend a hand of forgiveness to the youthful hero ? He struck a 
 violent blow at his head ! Jackson, throwing up his left arm, re- 
 ceived the stroke that was aimed at his life. The arm was broken, 
 but the heroic life was saved, to chastise, in after years, that act of 
 British tyranny and insolence. 
 
 The same ignominious task was now required of Robert. He 
 
 with equal spirit refused, and received a sabre-stroke on his head, 
 
 which not many weeks afterwards proved fatal to his life. Those 
 
 two Wounded boys were marched to Camden ; not a mouthful of 
 
 16* 
 
1 86 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 food or drop of water was given them by the way. The brutal 
 savages, with British uniform on their backs, refused them even 
 the privilege of slaking their fevered thirst by scooping up water 
 in their hands as they rode across the river! Arriving at Camden, 
 they with a multitude of others were thrust into prison. No atten- 
 tion was paid to their wounds or their wants. They had no beds, 
 nor any substitute — their only food was a scanty supply of bad 
 bread. They were robbed of their clothing, taunted by tories with 
 being rebels, and assured that they would be hanged. Andrew 
 Jackson was stripped of his jacket and shoes, and separated from 
 his brother so soon as their relationship was know*. The small- 
 pox made its appearance among the prisoners. JNo step was taken 
 to stay its progress or mitigate its ravages. Denied the attentions of 
 physician or nurse, they were left to perish without sympathy or 
 compassion. In this state of things, Andrew Jackson fell into con- 
 versation with the officer of the guard, described the condition of 
 the prisoners, and remonstrated against the treatment they had re- 
 ceived. A boy not yet fourteen years of age, who had proven that 
 he neither feared the sword nor the insolence of power, now dared, 
 in a dungeon surrounded with disease, squalor, and death, to con- 
 front his stern keepers, and in the honest and simple eloquence of 
 youth, tell the truth to ears most unwilling to hear it. Heroic 
 lad! how my soul yearns over thee! and even in sadness rejoiceth 
 that human nature, with all its vileness, is endowed with so much 
 of the Godlike ! How I long, bold youth ! to take thee in my 
 arms, and from the light of thine eyes and the proud swell of thy 
 bosom, draw some inspiration of the divine nature that fills thee! 
 
 Hearing in her loneliness of the capture and confinement of her 
 sons, Mrs. Jackson hastened down to Camden to minister to their 
 wants and rescue them from captivity. What a spectacle to a fond 
 mother! Both infected with the small-pox — both emaciated to 
 skeletons, and almost naked ! By the kind assistance of an Ameri- 
 can officer, she effected an exchange of prisoners, with her sons 
 included in the number, and immediately started home with hep 
 melancholy charge. 
 
 There were but two horses for the whole company. Mrs. Jack- 
 son rode one — on the other Robert was held by his companions, 
 while Andrew walked barefooted and half-clad. They journeyed 
 forty miles through a desolate country, and before reaching home, 
 a drenching rain drove in the small-pox on both the boys. In a 
 few days, Robert breathed his last — Andrew became delirious, and 
 remained for some time in a hopeless condition. By the constant 
 care of a good Samaritan, he was at length restored — the only son 
 of his widowed mother! 
 
 But this saint-like woman was not content with the rescue of her 
 own children. No sooner was her now only son restored to life, 
 
Oakland's eulogy. 187 
 
 thin she hastened down to Charleston, to minister to the wants of 
 her countrymen, confined in the prison-ships there — whose suffer- 
 ings and privations were ordy surpassed by the poor wretches 
 crammed into the middle passage of an African slave-ship. She 
 went — accomplished her mission of mercy — but never returned. 
 Seized with the prison-fever on her way back, she fell by the way- 
 side, and was buried, no mortal knows where. Andrew Jackson 
 never knew where to find his mother's grave — never knew where 
 to pour out his orphan tears on the senseless clod that covered the 
 remains of all that was dear to him on earth ! Hapless was his fate! 
 A father's care he never knew — his eldest brother long- since gone 
 — Robert murdered — and his mother now a victim to the cruelties 
 of the same ruthless enemy. Like Logan, or "The ancient mariner" 
 far out at sea with his companions all dead, could he exclaim — 
 
 " Alone! alone, all, all alone! 
 Alone on the wide, wide sea!" 
 
 But he was not alone. There was a God that overruled his des- 
 tiny — that set him apart and ordained him as a fit instrument to ac- 
 complish his divine purposes in the history of man. He had no 
 father, like Hannibal, to lead him to the altar of his country and 
 make him swear eternal hostility to Roman power. But in the 
 silent depths of his orphan heart, and in the presence of the God 
 that guided his footsteps, did he swear eternal vengeance against 
 that modern Rome, whose iron heel for centuries had trodden out 
 the spirit of his father-land, who had sought to subjugate the land 
 of his birth, the refuge of the oppressed, and had steeped his mur- 
 derous sword in the blood of his own kindred! 
 
 Bereft of the guardianship of father or mother, or friends, with 
 the idle and dissolute habits contracted in times of confusion 
 and civil war, he soon squandered the little patrimony that was 
 left him. And to all discerning eyes, the lad, Andrew Jackson, 
 was destined to wander a vagabond through the world, and doomed 
 to a life of want and profligacy. But the divine fire that burned 
 in his bosom, kindled up an energy that enabled him to make his 
 greatest conquest — the conquest of himself. He fled from the coun- 
 try in which he was born — forsook the companions that led him 
 astray ; and in a strange land threw away his bad habits and com- 
 menced a new life. 
 
 In a retired part of North Carolina he devoted himself to the 
 study of law — soon obtained license and removed to the western 
 part of Tennessee, where he was appointed, by the government, 
 district attorney. He grew up with the rapid growth of this new 
 country : was a conspicuous member of the convention that framed 
 the constitution of the state — was her first member in Congress — 
 then senator — then judge of the Supreme Court of Tennessee, — 
 
1S8 M0NWMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 from all these civil stations he voluntarily retired, the last, against 
 the earnest remonstrances of the best men in the state, and of a 
 large portion of fhe legislature, who entreated him to remain on 
 the bench, "that our common country may derive additional benefits 
 from those powers of thought and that independence of mind,which 
 nature never designed should be lost in retirement." With only 
 the nominal title of major-general of the Tennessee militia, he 
 lived for many years on the banks of his own beautiful Cumberland, 
 indulging in those blissful sweets of domestic life 'which he knew 
 so well how to appreciate and enjoy. 
 
 But the time was now come when he had to fulfil that silent oath 
 taken when an orphan boy standing alone amid the wreck of his 
 family and his country. Like Moses called from the land of Je- 
 thro to deliver his people from bondage, Jackson had now to come 
 from his retirement that he might avenge his familv and his father- 
 
 DO J 
 
 land, and save his country from captivity. 
 
 England, striding the earth like a Colossus, and subjugating the 
 nations beneath her iron yoke, turned once more her jealous eyes 
 on these flourishing states, once her subject colonies. She plun- 
 dered our commerce, captured our seamen, insulted our flag, and 
 drove us into a war in defence of our honour and our independence. 
 
 War was declared in June, 1812. In the autumn of that year, 
 after the treachery and disasters of the northern frontier, Jackson 
 was called to the defence of the Mississippi and New Orleans. 
 His proclamation rang through the hills and valleys of Tennessee; 
 and the brave sons of the pioneers of civilization flocked to the 
 standard of their untried but beloved chief. Not fifteen hundred 
 only, according to the requisition, but two thousand and more ga- 
 thered around him on the 12th day of December, at Nashville, 
 amidst sleet and cold and snow, ready to follow him to victory or 
 death. In a few weeks they were encamped near Natchez, ready 
 to march down to New Orleans, Mobile, or Pensacola, or anywhere 
 that their country might call, or the enenvy make his appearance. 
 
 While in this encampment, Jackson clevoted himself to the most 
 important duty of a commanding general — the organization and 
 discipline of his army. Having none but volunteer troops around 
 him — young men educated in unrestrained freedom, accustomed to 
 no other words of authority but their own commands to their obe- 
 dient slaves, his task was difficult indeed. But by his example, his 
 persuasive eloquence appealing to their honour and patriotism — by 
 his inflexible justice, and unwavering firmness, those young men 
 were made cheerfully to submit to the privations of the camp, and 
 the discipline of military life. They loved their general — they 
 had faith in his capacity, his justice, and his bravery. By the 
 magic of love and faith, a band of raw recruits were soon converted 
 into an enthusiastic, well trained, and invincible army. 
 
garland's eulogy. 189 
 
 What must have been the mortification of this little patriotic 
 band, when the order unexpectedly came for their discharge ! "On 
 the receipt of this letter (sa}'s the secretary of war), you will con- 
 sider the corps under your command as dismissed from the public 
 service, and take measures to have delivered to Major-General 
 Wilkinson all articles of public property which may have been put 
 into its possession." 
 
 A deeper wound could not have been inflicted on a patriotic soul 
 than this cruel and unexpected order of government. By great 
 exertions and personal sacrifices, Jackson had called together, orga- 
 nized, and disciplined a band of ardent youth eager to devote them- 
 selves to the cause of their country. Suddenly, and without cause, 
 they are ordered to be discharged and sent home without arms, 
 without tents, without provisions, or camp equipage of any kind. 
 Their homes were five hundred miles distant, they had to march 
 through a country without roads, without the means of shelter or 
 subsistence, and filled with hostile Indians. To disband them un- 
 der such circumstances to find their way home as they could 
 through a savage and wilderness country, was to subject them to 
 the certain horrors of the tomahawk, disease, and famine. 
 
 But the order is plain and direct. Wherever it meets him, under 
 whatever circumstances, the corps under his command is to be dis- 
 missed from the public service. What is to be done? A board 
 of officers advise obedience to the order. An ordinary man, the 
 mere slave of routine and detail, would have complied ; followed 
 strictly the letter of his order without consideration of circum- 
 stances, abandoned his army, and retired in disgust. 
 
 It was an occasion to try men's souls, what stuff they were made 
 of — and Jackson proved equal to the crisis. " What !" said he, 
 " shall the word of Andrew Jackson be forfeited ? Did I not pro- 
 mise to be a father and friend to these young men, when, in obe- 
 dience to my call, they flocked to the standard of their country? 
 What did I promise to the daughters of Tennessee that cold and 
 snowy day last December, when we struck our tents and took up the 
 line of march ? Did they not gather around me with tears in their 
 eyes and say, General ! general ! I trust my father to you — my hus- 
 band — my son — general ! I know you will take care of them — I know 
 you will see that justice is done them, and that they come safely back 
 home — general, I have faith in you, and I know you will not dis- 
 appoint me. Shall I now dismiss them to wander through a savage 
 wilderness without subsistence or means of defence — or shall I 
 abandon them in their frail condition to enlist as slaves in Wilkin- 
 son's army, whose recruiting officers are already among us to entice 
 them away ? It shall not be done. I will march them back as they 
 came, and dismiss them like honourable soldiers on the ground where 
 they first assembled." 
 
190 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 When about to commence his retreat, the surgeon reported one 
 young man as dying, and that it was useless for him to cumber the 
 already overloaded wagons. " So long as there is life in him," says 
 Jackson, " he shall go." He gave up his own horse for the sick, 
 as did his staff, and marched on foot. When the young man who 
 was reported to be dying, recovered from his swoon, he exclaimed, 
 "Where am I!" 
 
 " On your way home, my good fellow," said Jackson, who was 
 trudging'along through the mud by his side. The young man im- 
 mediately revived, and began to mend from that hour, and when 
 they reached Nashville, the good general had the pleasure to restore 
 him safe and sound to his mother. 
 
 Although shamefully treated, and sought to be disgraced by the 
 machinations of jealous rivals, Jackson was not like ordinary men, 
 disgusted and driven from the service of his country. On his re- 
 turn homeward, he again offered himself and his brave volunteers 
 to the war department, and asked to be marched to the northern 
 frontiers, that they might wipe out there the recent disgrace of 
 treachery and defeat. " I have a few standards," says he, " with 
 the American eagle upon them, that I long to plant on the ram- 
 parts of Maiden." No disappointments could discourage him — no 
 ill treatment could disgust him, while the cause of his country 
 called for his services. 
 
 The conduct of General Jackson on this occasion, in refusing to 
 obey the orders of government, has been considered as an act of 
 disobedience more worthy to be blamed than praised. But those 
 who thus regard it, have not a just view of the question. When 
 government issue their orders to a commanding general on a remote 
 field of operations, where their knowledge of localities is limited, 
 and their means of communication slow and uncertain, they assume 
 a certain state of things to exist, on which their orders are predi- 
 cated. But when the commands of government reach the officer 
 whose duty it is to execute them, the actual posture of affairs may 
 be wholly different from what was anticipated, and an execution of 
 them may cause harm rather than good to the public service. In 
 such a case, it is presumed that the commanding officer has so much 
 of the confidence of his government as to warrant him in assuming 
 the responsibility of varying the execution of his orders to suit the 
 actual state of things, and throwing himself on the justice and 
 magnanimity of his country for justification. It is true that this is 
 a difficult and delicate task to perform. None but a most extraordi- 
 nary man can venture on it* It requires a clear and comprehensive 
 intellect to see through and understand the real circumstances in 
 which he is placed, a bold and firm heart to execute what the 
 judgment approves. Such a man was Andrew Jackson. He who, 
 when a boy in the dungeon of Camden, did not fear to speak the 
 
garland's eulogy. 191 
 
 truth, would not, when a man, under the most trying circumstances, 
 fail to act the truth. 
 
 When government issued their orders to disband his army, it was 
 on the supposition that he had not left the borders of Tennessee. 
 Little did they know the promptness and energy of the man they 
 had to deal with. Instead of finding him lino-erina; on the Cum- 
 berland, their orders found him five hundred miles on his way to 
 the scene of action, with an army already organized, equipped, and 
 disciplined for service. When, therefore, they came to understand 
 the grounds on which he declined full obedience to their commands, 
 they not only approved but justified his conduct, and promptly paid 
 the five thousand dollars he had borrowed at Natchez on his own 
 responsibility to sustain his troops on their homeward march. 
 
 Though the country professed not to need the services of this in- 
 valuable man along the Canada lines, it was not long before he was 
 called to defend the borders of Tennessee from the tomahawk of 
 the ruthless savages. 
 
 Just before and about the time of the declaration of war, there 
 was a general hostile movement among the Indian tribes ; instigated 
 by British intrigues and their own spirit of revenge for the en- 
 croachments of the white man — they had formed an extensive 
 combination to drive the American settlers back beyond the Alle- 
 ghany, and reclaim their old homes and hunting-grounds in the 
 valley of the Mississippi. At the head of this savage alliance was 
 Tecumseh of the Shawnees. He went from tribe to tribe, and 
 filled their young warriors and prophets with such a spirit of 
 frenzy, that they resolved on an indiscriminate massacre, without 
 asking or giving quarters. The Creeks, who occupied what is now 
 the state of Alabama, the most warlike and numerous tribe within 
 the borders of the states, entered warmly into those schemes of war, 
 massacre, and extermination. In the autumn of 1813, they com- 
 menced operations by an indiscriminate slaughter of men, women, 
 and children, in the Tensaw settlement on the Alabama river. 
 Then collecting in a large body, not less than five thousand strong, 
 they commenced their march towards the southern frontier of Ten- 
 nessee. At this moment of consternation and alarm, Jackson was 
 called to the rescue. When his voice was heard, the sons of Ten- 
 nessee hastened to his standard without number. 
 
 He who had stood by them and brought them safely home last 
 spring, at the hazard of his own life and reputation, could not fail 
 to have their services whenever called on. We may well imagine 
 that the women vied with the men in their zeal and alacrity. " Go, 
 my son ! go, my husband ! Jackson, your father and friend, calls 
 you — vour country is in danger — go, help him to chastise the 
 savages — he will take care of you, and bring you safely back 
 home. He did not forsake you — don't you forsake him." 
 
192 MONUMKXT TO JACKSON. 
 
 Jackson soon found himself on the south side of the Tennessee 
 river, at the head of an army amply sufficient to exterminate the 
 Creek nation ; but without support and without provisions. 
 
 General Cocke, of East Tennessee, with twenty-five hundred 
 men, had been ordered to unite with Jackson and act under his 
 command. The same officer had faithfully promised an ample sup- 
 ply of provisions, which were supposed to be on their way down 
 the river. Jackson waited several days, then marched up the river 
 to Thompson's creek, where he remained in hourly expectation of 
 provisions. But there was no arrival, and no prospect of an arri- 
 val. In this state of things, without the reinforcements thought 
 necessary to enable him to cope with the savages, with only two 
 days' provision on the back of his soldiers, he resolved to march 
 down into the heart of the enemy's country, where he knew that 
 nothing would be found but barren woods, deserted villages, and 
 hostile armies. For boldness of design, and a fearless reliance on 
 his own resources, this act is unsurpassed by any of the renowned 
 achievements of Hannibal or Napoieon. Bent on the accomplish- 
 ment of the object for which he was called into the field, no press- 
 ing necessity, no prospective want or suffering, could arrest him. 
 Any ordinary general would have waited, and he would have been 
 justified by military rule, in waiting where he was for supplies and 
 reinforcements. But General Jackson was not a man of rule — he 
 would not tarry while there was an enemy to conquer. Press for- 
 ward he must or chafe away his ardent soul with anxiety and regret. 
 He carried within his own bosom the never-failing elements of suc- 
 cess. He had faith in himself, faith in the boundless resources of 
 a brave heart that conquers impossibilities — he had that deep and 
 trustful faith in the Providence of God, which alone can remove 
 mountains, and stamps its possessor with the mark of true greatness. 
 
 Arriving at the Ten Islands on Coosa river, he established a fort, 
 and called it Fort Strother. Here he waited some time, for the junc- 
 tion of Gen. White, who led the van of Cocke's army, and had been 
 ordered to come down with the supplies so long promised. So far 
 from obeying this order, White took a retrograde motion, reformed 
 with Cocke, and had it been their design to defeat the expedition, 
 they could not have taken more effectual means to do so. Notwith- 
 standing these cruel disappointments, that would have disheartened 
 almost any other man, Jackson plunged down still further into the 
 enemy's country, met their main body in front of Talladega, dis- 
 persed them by a glorious victory, and rescued a friendly village, 
 with all its women and children, from massacre and destruction. 
 But this victorious army had not wherewithal to stay their famished 
 appetites. The rescued village, gathering all their means, could 
 not even furnish a scanty breakfast. 
 
 Forced to return to Fort Strother, thev were reduced to the last 
 
GARLAND'S EULOGY. 193 
 
 extremity. A soldier in the rear of the army perceived Jackson 
 seated under an oak tree, leisurely eating. " Well," thought he, " the 
 general has taken good care of himself, and left the poor soldier to 
 starve. I'll go and beg a morsel of bread." " Yes," says the gene- 
 ral, " I never turn away the hungry ;" and offering a handful of 
 acorns, added, " I will most cheerfully divide with you such food 
 as I have." The soldier gazed with tearful and mute admiration 
 on his now thrice-beloved chief, and marched on with a more cheer- 
 ful heart. There is nothing the soldier Avill not endure when 
 shared by his leader. Arriving at the fort, they found the sick 
 and the guard left to protect them in 'as starving a condition as 
 themselves. Jackson, though mortification and anguish were con- 
 suming his heart, wore a cheerful countenance, spoke brave words 
 of encouragement and hope — was first to set the example in feed- 
 ing on the offal of the shambles, and pronounced it very good. He 
 had now to contend with a more formidable enemy even than 
 famine — mutiny in his own camp. The main body of the army 
 consisted of two regiments — the regiment of volunteers that had 
 followed him to Natchez the winter before — and a regiment of 
 drafted militia. The militia, disgusted with the neglect and ill 
 treatment they had received, and seized with the home-fever, re- 
 solved to quit the camp and return to Tennessee. Apprised of their 
 design, Jackson drew up the regiment of volunteers in front, and 
 ordered them to fire whenever the mutineers commenced their 
 march. Awed by this act of boldness, the militia returned to their 
 duty. 
 
 What was the mortification of the general, next morning, to find 
 the volunteers themselves in a state of rebellion ! Those very men 
 that he would not abandon in their hour of need, were now ready to 
 abandon him, their camp, and their duty. Unappalled by this 
 rapid succession of calamities, the ready mind and prompt will of 
 Jackson did not fail him. The militia, whose rebellion had been 
 conquered but the day before, were now drawn up to oppose this 
 new mutiny, and so stern and resolute were their countenances, 
 that the volunteers thought it best to desist from their purposes and 
 return to the camp. Deeming it hopeless to undertake any enter- 
 prise with troops so homesick and dispirited, Jackson came to terms 
 with them. He agreed that they might take up the line of march 
 homeward, but in case provisions were met on the way, they were 
 to return. They did meet supplies not far from the camp ; but, so 
 far from returning, they seemed more determined to go forward. 
 Going alone among his men, to appease them by argument and re- 
 monstrance, Jackson found the spirit of mutiny so prevalent and 
 determined, that he seized a musket, stood out in front of the bri- 
 gade, levelled the musket across the neck of his horse, and pro- 
 claimed that the first man who moved in the ranks should he shot 
 17 
 
194 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 down. Mute astonishment seized on the whole army — no one 
 moved — no one spoke. What was one emaciated and wounded 
 man to a thousand — one old rusty musket, incapable of giving fire, 
 to a thousand, in the hands of unerring marksmen. It was not fear 
 that awed those brave men, but astonishment and admiration at the 
 daring, the magnanimity, and heroic self-sacrifice of the Godlike 
 man that stood before them. A murmur of applause ran along the 
 lines, and they signified their willingness to return. But no sooner 
 had he conquered one difficulty, than another, still greater, rose be- 
 fore him. It is now the 10th of December, and the volunteers 
 claim that their time of service has expired, and the militia, in a 
 few days more, will likewise claim to be discharged. 
 
 Jackson resorted to every argument that could be suggested to 
 his fertile and eloquent genius. He applauded their former con- 
 duct, depicted the disgrace they would bring on themselves, and 
 the calamities they might produce, if they were then to abandon 
 the service. After appealing to every other motive, he told them 
 that he should do his duty, whatever might be the consequence, 
 and if they left him, they must pass over his dead body. Ordering 
 the artillery to be drawn up in front, "Now," said he, "argument 
 is at an end, and you must choose, and that at once, whether you 
 will go or stay." Silence prevailed along the line. He demanded 
 a prompt and explicit answer. Still they were silent. Remaining 
 in their front, and in range of their fire, he ordered the artillery to 
 prepare their matches. "Let us return," was murmured along the 
 lines. The officers came forward, and with the assent of their men, 
 pledged themselves to remain. What he would not suffer them, at 
 the hazard of his life, to do without authority, he now freely gave 
 them permission to do. While the camp was breaking up, and the 
 troops all in confusion, returning home, Jackson exclaimed, "If but 
 two men will stand by me, I will not desert this post." " Here is 
 one" said Captain Gordon ; " let us see if we can't find another." 
 He soon raised a hundred and nine, who agreed to stand by their 
 general to the last extremity. With this handful of men, Jackson 
 resolved not to abandon the defence of his country. 
 
 In this hopeless state of things, Governor Blunt wrote to him to 
 come home. The answer is so characteristic of the man — so like 
 the Andrew Jackson we have heard and read of in modern times, 
 I cannot refrain from reading it to this assembly. After describing, 
 in strong terms, the exposed and perilous condition of the country, 
 he proceeds : — 
 
 " And in these circumstances I am advised to retrograde, to leave 
 the Georgia army to perish, or precipitately retreat, the friendly 
 Indians to be massacred or join the enemy, the Cherokees to be 
 destroyed or become our enemies, and our own frontier to be 
 drenched in blood by our friendly Indians, infuriated by the trea- 
 
garland's eulogy. 195 
 
 chery of the United States, — which will add at least five thousand 
 desperate warriors to the present strength of our enemy, — lose all we 
 have obtained with vast expense and with the blood of our citizens. 
 For what purpose ? To please the people of the present moment, 
 which in a short time will bring down upon our heads the impre- 
 cations of those very vile reptiles in the community, who are seek- 
 ing for popularity and selt-aggrandizement, and now wishing to 
 wear the name of patriots, and, what is still worse, the just indig- 
 nation of our government, and thousands yet unborn. Arouse from 
 your lethargy ! Despise the fawning smiles or the snarling frowns of 
 such miscreants. With energy exercise your functions. The cam- 
 paign must rapidly progress, or you are for ever damned and your 
 country ruined. Call out the full quota authorized, execute the 
 orders of the secretary of war, and arrest the officer who omits hia 
 duty ; order a draft for the deficiency occasioned by the desertion 
 of the volunteers, and let popularity perish for the present. Let 
 the miscreant who never thinks of his country or its dangers, un- 
 less to promote his own views, feel the weight of the orders of his 
 government. Save Mobile, save the territory, save your own 
 frontier from becoming drenched in blood, and yourself from 
 being damned for it by these monsters and these sycophantic 
 complainers. What! retrograde under such circumstances ! I will 
 perish first ! What ! a governor of a patriotic state, whose citizens 
 pressed for war, who bawled for permission to exterminate the 
 Creeks, to pause or hesitate at such a crisis as this! Such conduct 
 cannot be justified, cannot be excused. Hear the voice of a friend : 
 If you compel me to retrograde, the awful responsibility must and 
 will be ascribed to you. I shall do my duty ; I will retain the post 
 or die in the struggle, unless ordered to retreat by my commanding 
 general. I have long since determined, when I die, to leave my 
 reputation untarnished." 
 
 In obedience to this earnest call, a few sixty-day volunteers were 
 sent to his aid. With this handful of men, who had never been in 
 battle, had never seen service, Jackson marched down into the 
 midst of a wilderness howling with thousands of savage warriors. 
 In most men this would have been rashness. But the genius and 
 self-reliance of Jackson conquered what to others would have been 
 impossibilities. With this small band of inexperienced young men 
 he fought three of the most desperate and bloody battles in Indian 
 warfare — drove the enemy from their strong holds, and finally 
 brought them to capitulation on the Hickory ground — that^ sacred 
 spot where the prophets had told them the foot of no white man 
 could ever tread. 
 
 "I am in your power," said Weatherford, their great chief, "do 
 with me as you please. I am a soldier, I have done the white 
 people all the harm I could: I have fought them, and fought them 
 
196 MONT'MExMT TO JACKSON. 
 
 bravely. If I had an army I would yet fight and contend to the 
 last, but I have none ; my people are all gone. Once I could ani- 
 mate my warriors to battle ; but I cannot animate the dead. My 
 warriors can no longer hear my voice ; their bones are at Talladega, 
 Tallushatchee, Emuckfaw, and Tohopeka. I can now do no more 
 than weep over the misfortunes of my nation. I have not surren- 
 dered myself thoughtlessly. Whilst there were chances of success, 
 I never left my post nor supplicated peace. But my people are 
 gone, and I now ask it for my nation and for myself. On the mi- 
 series and misfortunes brought upon my country, I look back with 
 deepest sorrow, and wish to avert still greater calamities. You are 
 a brave man. I rely upon your generosity. You will exact no 
 terms of a conquered people but such as they should accede to. 
 Whatever they may be, it would now be madness and folly to op- 
 pose. You have told us where we might go and be safe. This is 
 a good talk, and my people ought to listen to it. They shall listen 
 to it." 
 
 Great, magnanimous chief! how like the proud Volscian didst 
 thou stand, though five times beaten, and boldly front the all-con- 
 quering Roman ! Vain were thy powers ! The swift son of light- 
 ning fell upon them, and they were scattered like chaff before the 
 wind. 
 
 Search the records of history, nowhere will you find, in more 
 rapid succession, so many extraordinary incidents, displaying the 
 bravery, fortitude, magnanimity, and greatness of the hero, than in 
 this Creek campaign. Who ever did more with less means'? who 
 ever encountered more difficulties in his own camp? rising higher 
 and higher in his all-conquering will, triumphing over every mis- 
 fortune as they came thicker and faster upon him, the soul of Jack- 
 son shone before his mutinous followers as something god-like ; they 
 bowed in awe before him, and obeyed his commands as a superior 
 being. 
 
 But let us hasten on. Andrew Jackson has now become major- 
 general of the army of the United States. The poor prisoner boy 
 of Camden, naked and barefooted, had grown up to be a mighty 
 man of valour. Musing over the misfortunes of his family — the 
 murder of his brother — the attempted murder of himself — the 
 worse than murder of his sainted mother, — and dropping a tear over 
 the remembrance of her unknown and solitary resting-place, his 
 bosom burned for revenge. Not for himself — not for his own 
 wrongs — these his magnanimous soul could forgive. But when he 
 thought of the long ages of cruel and oppressive tyranny practised 
 on the land of his fathers by the proud Briton — his attempted sub- 
 jugation of his own country — his repeated insults — his recent sack 
 and destruction of its towns and villages — his triumphant march 
 over its defenceless soil — his invasion, and destruction of its capi- 
 
garland's eulogy. 197 
 
 tol, the eager sword of the veteran warrior leaped from its scab- 
 bard, burning to avenge the blood of his family, his father-land, 
 and his country. The hour had now come — often dreamed of — 
 often revealing itself in the silent depths of his own heart as in 
 prophetic vision — it had now come. Commander-in-chief of the 
 Southern division, it was his duty to defend the coast from the Sa- 
 bine to the Spanish lines. This coast is threatened with invasion. 
 New Orleans is the point of attack. In possession of that, the 
 enemy would hold the keys of the Mississippi — the only outlet to 
 the great Western valley teaming with wealth and population. In 
 possession of that, Great Britain would hold us, as she boasted in 
 the courts of Europe, "prisoners at large in our own territory." 
 In possession of that, more important than Gibraltar or Calcutta, 
 all the blood and treasure of the continent could not wrest it from 
 her. No mind can conceive — time cannot reveal the importance 
 of that position, to the existence and prosperity of the Union — 
 the progressive developement of civilization — and the liberties of 
 mankind. 
 
 Commensurate with the importance of the position was the pre= 
 paration for attack. A more formidable armament never invaded 
 our coasts. Sixty sail of the line, with all the equipments of naval 
 service, and burthened with fifteen thousand land forces — the choice 
 troops of Wellington — the conquerors of Napoleon, with veteran 
 and renowned leaders in command, are now hovering about the 
 capes of Lake Borgne, seeking some channel of approach to the 
 city of New Orleans. Who can imagine the consternation that 
 pervaded that city ? 
 
 " Have you heard the news'?" said a citizen to one hurrying by. 
 " No ; what is it V " Sixty sail have been seen coining up Lake 
 Borgne — the enemy are said to be fifteen thousand strong — in a 
 few days they will land and take possession of the city. The 
 watchword is ' Beauty and booty.' " " We are gone ! we are gone !" 
 " But stop, havn't you heard that the American army has come for 
 our defence ?" " The American army ! where is it ? where is it 
 encamped? in the suburb St. Mary, suburb Marigny, or the Bayou 
 road — let me go and embrace the officers and bid them welcome to 
 our defence !" " Come and see !" A few steps bring them to the 
 principal hotel in the city. In a remote corner of the room is 
 seen a grim son of Mars, tall, erect, thin, and weather-beaten, arms 
 tightly drawn across his breast, brow bent, mouth compressed, and 
 eyes glowing with fire as he broods in silence over the wild tumult 
 of his own thoughts. " There," said the conductor, "there is the 
 American army !" " What do you say ! that grim-looking man there, 
 the American army ?" " That is all, sir, the president and Congress 
 have done for our defence — they have sent that man as commander- 
 in-chief of the Southern division, but no armv for him to com- 
 17* 
 
198 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 mand." " My God ! my Cod ! what is to be done 1 hopeless ! hope- 
 less ! let us go and hurry through a resolution in the legislature 
 proposing terms with the enemy. The government has abandoned 
 us. We have nothing to do but make the best terms of capitula- 
 tion we can — let us hasten before they seize and sack the city." 
 
 This was the second day of December, 1814. Jackson arrived 
 there that day solitary and alone. And yet, in twenty days from 
 that time, he struck the blow that saved New Orleans ! As usual, 
 the most formidable enemy he had to contend with was not the 
 red dragon of England, but consternation, disaffection, and mutiny 
 within. He had first to kindle hope in place of despair, inspire 
 honour in place of treachery, infuse a spirit of patriotism in bo- 
 soms that thought to surrender their country, rather than sacrifice 
 a tithe of their property ; and then out of the crude elements 
 around him, create an army to meet the best disciplined troops of 
 that warlike age. All this he did. In twenty days, he quelled a 
 mutinous and mixed population of French, Spanish, and English, 
 that cared nothing for the defence of the country, and held daily 
 communication with the enemy — and by the magic of his name, 
 brought around him a sufficient number of volunteer troops to strike 
 a blow that not only saved New Orleans, but preserved the Union, 
 and gave a new impulse to the progress and civilization of mankind. 
 
 The 23d of December, the enemy landed nine miles below New 
 Orleans, three thousand strong. Jackson got news of it about noon. 
 In a few hours he marched out with fifteen hundred men — Coffee's 
 brigade, which had arrived but the night before, and the City Vo- 
 lunteers, to meet the foe. In the darkness of the night he fell upon 
 the enemy — fell upon him like a flash of lightning, and so stunned 
 and scattered his forces that he did not rally in five days. Jackson 
 leisurely retired two miles back towards the city, and commenced 
 throwing up breastworks along the line of a canal that extended 
 from the river to the morass. For five days he laboured day and 
 night without rest or intermission — he was here, there, everywhere. 
 His master-spirit pervaded every bosom. Despair was flung away. 
 Men, women, and children, animated by the light of his counte- 
 nance, vied with each other in zeal and exertions. The whole 
 city was brought under requisition — horses, carts, wheelbarrows, 
 and cotton-bags — did any one complain? Jackson, for answer, 
 placed a musket in his hand and bade him, " Go, sir, stand behind 
 your cotton-bag, and defend it." While all this work and din of 
 preparation was going on, there lay the enemy in si°;ht. For five 
 days, with his spy-glasses and keen vision he beheld what was go- 
 ing on, and made no effort to prevent it. It was now too late. At 
 the end of five days an attempt was made to carry the works, but 
 in vain. To turn them was as vain — far out in the morass, on 
 floating logs, lay Coffee and his men ready to receive them. At 
 
garland's eulogy. 199 
 
 length the great and awful day arrived. In three divisions the 
 enemy advances. Packenham, Gibbs, and Keen. In that bright 
 January morning, Jackson beheld the long column advancing, its 
 scarlet and steel glittering in the sunbeams like the scales of a 
 crested dragon coming up out of the sea to devour him. Now and 
 then a sky-rocket, shot into the air, made wild music with the ele- 
 ments. The first ball that passed him, Jackson saluted, "Welcome 
 thou first visiter from a British mortar, long have I sought to meet 
 you — now is our day of reckoning." Slowly and steadily the long 
 column advanced. All was silence behind the parapets; yonder is 
 one waving his port-fire in the air to keep it glowing ; yonder is a 
 long line with hands on the lock ready for the word ; there stands 
 Jackson like Mars' statue, his eyes glaring fire, and his drawn 
 sword ready to wave a welcome salute. Presently the air is rent, 
 and it rains down on that devoted column hail and fire and brim- 
 stone, such as was not known since the days of Sodom — it seemed 
 as if earth belched forth thunder, and opened her devouring jaws 
 to swallow them. Behold yon long line of glittering scarlet and 
 steel — anon, smoke and cries and consternation. 
 
 In that wild revelry they seemed not living men of flesh and 
 blood, but the spirits of some departed generation, playing with the 
 cannon and the musketry ; none fell, none faltered. That is not 
 Jackson gliding like a shadow in the flame and smoke — it is the 
 spirit of his father — his murdered brother — it is the spirit of his 
 mother coming from her long-lost grave, and wavinsr the death 
 
 O DO* *_> 
 
 torch in frantic joy over the head of her dying murderers. Ah ! 
 Packenham, your boots are muddy now, who will clean them? 
 Go, Lambert, to the prison-boy of Camden, he will tell you how 
 to minister to the wants of the sick, the wounded, and the prisoner ! 
 Gibbs can tell how a magnanimous soul can act towards a fallen 
 foe — behold him on his dying bed, smilingly take into his arms the 
 sword which had been generously returned by the conquering hero! 
 We attach no great merit to the fact, that the flash of gunpowder 
 and the whiz of bullets had no terrors for Andrew Jackson. There 
 were thousands that feared them as little as he did ; while not one 
 in a whole generation could be found with his powers of command, 
 that fecundity of genius, by which, under the most trying circum- 
 stances, he created unforeseen resources — raised, as it were, from 
 the ground, hosts of intrepid warriors, and provided every vulner- 
 able point with ample means of defence — that instinctive superi- 
 ority, self-reliance, and impulsive energy, which at once rallied 
 around him universal confidence, impressed one irresistible move- 
 ment on all the jarring elements of a mixed population; roused 
 their slumbering spirits, and diffused through every rank the noble 
 ardour that glowed in his own bosom — that consummate prudence 
 which defeated all the combinations of a sagacious enemy — entan- 
 
200 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 gled them in the very snares they had spread for him, and suc- 
 ceeded in effecting their utter destruction, without exposing the 
 lives of his own soldiers. These qualities of mind constitute his 
 greatness, and not brute courage. 
 
 When the 8th day of January came, the work was done. The 
 greatest enemy had been conquered. By his wise plans and indo- 
 mitable energy, Jackson had made certain and inevitable the glo- 
 rious results of that day. He had already fought the battle and 
 won the victory before the day of carnage came. 
 
 But it has been said that there is no great merit in fighting be- 
 hind cotton-bags. And some are ungenerous enough to detract 
 from that glorious achievement, on the ground that those who 
 accomplished it stood in comparative security. Why, then, were 
 not the results on the opposite side of the river as brilliant as those 
 on the left ? There were like fortifications, and the friends, neigh- 
 bours, and companions of those on the left to defend them. No 
 difference in the strength of position or the spirit of the men ; yet, 
 on the right bank, though opposed by one division only, under 
 Lambert, they fled at the first fire — while those on the opposite side 
 never flinched from their duty, though they had to meet the whole 
 force of the British arm}', led on in three divisions by the most 
 renowned generals. Why this difference? On the one side there 
 was Jackson to awe into obedience, animate, and direct ; while on 
 the other, there was no master-spirit like him to " ride upon the 
 whirlwind and direct the storm." All praise, then, is due to the 
 great chieftain, who won a victory as brilliant as any recorded in the 
 annals of warfare ; as important in its consequences to the present 
 and future generations, and to all mankind, as any battle ever fought 
 in the tide of time. 
 
 We can no longer dwell on the military achievements of this 
 great warrior. We are now called to contemplate his character in 
 another sphere of action. Great were his victories in war — still 
 greater his triumphs in peace. Crowned with the laurel-wreath 
 by virgin hands, in God's temple, at Orleans — he was now called 
 to receive the civic crown from the hands of all the people, stand- 
 ing on the steps of the altar of freedom, in the capitol of his 
 country. Large was his experience, ample his preparation in civil 
 as well as military life. In his early youth, for many years he 
 was devoted to the study and practice of a profession that brought 
 the mind in daily and familiar intercourse with the laws and go- 
 vernment of his country. A pioneer among the first settlers of a 
 new territory, he saw the birth and developement of the social and 
 civil institutions of a free people. At thirty years of age, he was 
 the leading statesman of a young republic. His creative mind was 
 called on to aid in framing a constitution of government, suited to 
 a people of largest liberty — and then to administer its laws in the 
 
garland's eulogy. 201 
 
 functions of an office of highest trust and responsibility. By his 
 powers of thought and independence of character, he exalted the 
 judicial station in the minds of a rude people. He whose retire- 
 ment from the supreme bench was opposed by the best men of his 
 state, must have possessed rare qualities as a judge. 
 
 Long in retirement, devoted to rural occupations, disconnected 
 from the strife of party politics, and in familiar intercourse with 
 the sons of those pioneers who had conquered a rude wilderness to 
 the hand of cultivation, he learned to value the strong sense of 
 freedom, the bold intellect and hardy virtues of an agricultural 
 people, and to perceive that the perpetuity of our free institutions 
 depends on the continuance of their virtue and intelligence. With 
 such associations and such habits of mind, he could not fail to in- 
 terpret the constitution in the sense of the great apostle of liberty, 
 as an instrument of limited powers, reserving to the states and to 
 the people many of the most important attributes of sovereignty. 
 Dwelling among an enlightened people, with few wants, and requir- 
 ing but few restraints — having a constitution and laws of their own 
 adequate to their purpose and faithfully administered, he could not 
 perceive the necessity or the justice of conferring all powers on a 
 central government, remote from observation, in the hands of men 
 opposed to him in interest, alien in feeling, and over whom he and 
 his people could exert but a limited control. Such thoughts natu- 
 rally suggested themselves to the unbiassed mind of Andrew Jackson; 
 and* he who despised shams, and sought and loved the truth for her 
 own sake, could not fail to embrace them. With large experience, 
 and ample preparation, in mature old age and full of honours, 
 Andrew Jackson ascended the steps of the capitol as president of 
 the United States, forty years after the foundation of the republic, 
 and took the oath to support the constitution. This was no un- 
 unmeaning ceremony with him. He solemnly purposed to support 
 the constitution as it came from the hands of Washington and his 
 compeers, and none other. Whatever a plain, honest, common- 
 sense interpretation of its words could be made to mean, that was 
 the constitution he intended to abide by and enforce. Those pow- 
 ers of intellect and that independence of mind so conspicuous in 
 his earlier days, had never forsaken him. He was not the man to 
 yield to authority against his own judgment, or surrender the so- 
 lemn convictions of his mind to the plea of necessity. 
 
 The interpolation of forty years' legislation, though sanctioned 
 by judicial authority and great names, had no weight with him 
 against the plain reading of the constitution. After having encoun- 
 tered so many difficulties, and fronted so many dangers, through a 
 Long and eventful life, he was not now to be deterred by any con- 
 sideration, from the discharge of his duty. Having filled the mea- 
 sure of his country's glory, and leaning with his arm on eternity, 
 
202 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 he had nothing more to ask. But with a popularity, a weight of 
 character and an influence unknown since the da}*s of Washington, 
 he stood by the altar of the constitution, and offered it all as a sacri- 
 fice to his country. Thousands have condemned him, but none 
 have charged him with selfishness or a sinister motive. Coming 
 into the administration with a determination of bringing: back the 
 government to the simple meaning of the constitution, confining its 
 action to a few general powers, and leaving all the rest to the states 
 and to the people, he resolved to accomplish it or perish in the 
 ruins. This, his greatest task, he did accomplish, as he always 
 accomplished everything he undertook, gallantly, nobly, perfectly. 
 
 The first great measure of his administration was to put an end 
 to a system of internal improvements which had been commenced 
 hy the federal government, and was rapidly growing up into a mag- 
 nificent scheme of fraud, speculation, and expenditure, far surpass- 
 ing the South Sea, or Mississippi scheme, that engulphed all Europe 
 in bankruptcy and ruin. 
 
 All are now satisfied that the construction of roads and canals, 
 and other means of intercommunication, properly belongs to the 
 states. They are better acquainted with their own resources, and 
 can conduct the means of their developement more economically, 
 more judiciously, and extensively. And if they, in the prosecution 
 of their plans, for the last fifteen or twenty years, have involved 
 themselves in so large a debt, and suffered so much from fraudulent 
 legislation as to be driven, some to the necessity of repudiation, 
 others to the verge of bankruptcy, what would have been the con- 
 dition of the whole Union had they continued those plans so zeal- 
 ously commenced, and entered on the prosecution of those magnifi- 
 cent surveys which their engineers had reported as practicable, ne- 
 cessary, and proper ? The states ceasing to be sovereign and inde- 
 pendent — ceasing to act as a counter-weight to the neutralizing in- 
 fluence of the federal government, would have been clamorous sup- 
 pliants of its bounty — fraudulent combinations would have carried 
 everything in the national legislature — some of the states would 
 have had large improvements conducted through their borders, while 
 others would have had none ; and all would have been loaded with a 
 debt only surpassed by the crushing burthen of England. Resort- 
 ing to that tribunal power intrusted to the executive, not only for 
 the preservation of its own independence and dignity, but for the 
 protection of the rights reserved to the states and the people, An- 
 drew Jackson, by a single exercise of its authority, arrested the 
 centralizing tendency of the republic, and saved his country from 
 ruin. 
 
 When Jackson took in his hand the helm of state, the Bank of 
 the United States was in the plenitude of its power — its numerous 
 branches, in close affiliation and absolute dependence on a central 
 
garland's eulogy. 203 
 
 power, occupied the most important and commanding positions. 
 Its influence over the currency and the commercial operations of 
 the country was unbounded : it could make or unmake ; build up 
 or destroy, at pleasure. Its directory, seated in their marble palace 
 at Philadelphia, like the gods on Olympus, could make rain or sun- 
 shine, as it pleased their sovereign will. Even the representatives 
 of the people, sent to examine into the abominations and sorceries 
 of this red harlot, were dazzled with her brightness. They bowed 
 obsequiously before her golden altars, and returned rejoicing, and 
 told the people that she was not only pure, but worthy of all trust 
 and confidence. No greater combination of power ever existed 
 under any government. The East India Company, that held an 
 empire under its sway, and burthened the seas with its treasures, 
 could not boast of greater authority. To have possession of the 
 money influence in a commercial country, is to control its move- 
 ments in the remotest ramifications of society. It is holding levia- 
 than with a hook. This power, all-pervading and absolute, was 
 unquestionably held by the Bank of the United States. 
 
 Against this formidable institution, Jackson stood up and battled 
 alone. In his reading of the constitution there was no authority for 
 it — to his observation and experience the existence of such a power 
 was dangerous to a free republic. Satisfied in his mind that the 
 Bank of the United States was both unconstitutional and inexpedient, 
 it was vain to remonstrate. It was vain to tell him that Wash- 
 ington had sanctioned it — he had as clear a judgment, as pure 
 a patriotism, as Washington. It was vain to tell him that good 
 and wise men, yielding to the cry of distress, had for the second time 
 established a bank — and that Madison, surrendering his own judg- 
 ment to precedence and authority, had approved it. No such dis- 
 tress existed now — no such plea of necessity could be urged. Now 
 was the time, in profound peace, to apply the knife and the cautery, 
 to cut out and destroy the cancer that was threatening to consume 
 the constitution of the country. 
 
 Deserted by all his friends, as he had been on many trying oc- 
 casions before while a military chieftain, he was left alone to rely 
 on his own clear judgment and unshaken fortitude. 
 
 When he vetoed the Bank Bill, and caused the public money to be 
 removed from its custody, his friends earnestly entreated him not 
 to do it. You will ruin us, general — you will destroy your part}'. 
 We cannot stand against the tempest that will be raised against us. 
 He stood unmoved. They might tear down the marble pillars of 
 the Capitol, and bury him beneath the ruins, but they could not 
 shake him from his purpose. Calmly he did what duty required, 
 and left the rest to Heaven. Many think he was wrong. God for- 
 bid that they, against their consciences, should think otherwise ! This 
 is a free country, where thoughts. and words to utter them, are like 
 
204- 
 
 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 the air we breathe. Andrew Jackson would be the last man to 
 suppress the freedom of opinion. The indignant boy who remon- 
 strated with the minions of a tyrant, and the hero, who, in mature 
 life, hurled consternation and destruction on the presumptuous in- 
 vaders of a land of freemen, would be the last man to suppress the 
 free utterance of thoughts that might condemn even his acts as op- 
 pressive and t}'rannical. Neither we who approve of that measure, 
 nor those that condemn it, can be impartial judges. Too much of 
 the prejudice and selfish interests of the times still linger about our 
 feelings, and obscure our judgments. Posterity alone can judge of 
 its importance. Leave it to them — they will pronounce it one of 
 the greatest of the great acts of Andrew Jackson's life. 
 
 But another deed, still greater if possible, had yet to be performed 
 by Andrew Jackson, before he could rescue the government from 
 its centripetal tendency, and restore those features of a federative 
 republic which, in the vicissitudes of forty years, had well-nigh 
 been effaced. A tariff" of duties, onerous to the agricultural in- 
 terests, and laid solely for the protection and bounty of other interests, 
 had been imposed. The protective policy was distinctly recognized 
 and established, and proclaimed to be as jtxed as fate. But the 
 principle of protection was regarded by the school of politicians to 
 which Jackson belonged as an unwarrantable abuse of constitutional 
 power, if not plainly unconstitutional. Thus impressed, he was 
 hastening rapidly to reduce the tariff to the revenue standard. But 
 one of the states of the confederacy, believing that the doctrine of 
 protection, just as the doctrine of a right to tax the colonies, had 
 not been surrendered, proclaimed that the only safety of the re- 
 public lay in state interposition. Our fathers did not complain 
 of the burthen of their taxes, but contended against the right of 
 taxation without representation. South Carolina did not merely 
 complain of the onerous nature of the tariff" system ; but protested 
 against the principles in which it was founded, and declared her 
 determination not to obey any law, however moderate in its details, 
 that recognized the unconstitutional principle of protection. Feel- 
 ing herself aggrieved, and having appealed, as she thought in vain 
 for redress, she took the remedy of her wrongs in her own hands. 
 God forbid that the time should ever come, when any one of these 
 sovereign states should be afraid to say that this or that law is un- 
 constitutional ! and so saying, should be afraid to act. The only 
 conservative power of this confederative republic, is in the states. 
 What matters it how nicely adjusted may be the balance of power 
 between the executive, legislative, and judicial departments at 
 Washington, when they have swallowed up all the powers that 
 were reserved to the states and to the people? Take away the rights 
 of Virginia, and what security have we for our liberties? We 
 should no longer be a federative republic of sovereign states, but 
 
garland's eulogy. 205 
 
 the miserable, degraded provinces of a magnificent empire. Vir- 
 ginia would be recreant to her trust, and unworthy of the venera- 
 tion of her sons, did she not stand by those invaluable rights that 
 have been reserved to her and to her people. This is what South 
 Carolina did — no more. She proclaimed in her solemn assemblies, 
 that the principle of protection was not only ruinous to her interests, 
 but as plainly unconstitutional as the right claimed by the British 
 parliament to tax the colonies without their consent ; and declared 
 her resolution to refuse obedience to such a law. In my judgment 
 she was too hasty — too soon distrusted the sincerity of those who 
 co-operated with her. But with that we have nothing to do. She 
 thought otherwise ; and so thinking, had a right to act as she did. 
 But, as I conceive, she placed on wrong grounds a right action. 
 Whenever a state shall be driven to the necessity of refusing to 
 obey a law of the Union, she, as a sovereignty, has a right to do so 
 without being treated as a rebellious province, but on the other 
 hand, the government of the Union has an equal right to enforce 
 her obedience. This implies a trial of strength — an issue of arms 
 — and that alternative which involves a state and her co-states in 
 war with each other, can neither be peaceful, nor constitutional. 
 
 While South Carolina was trying the experiment of state inter- 
 position as a remedy for her wrongs ; Jackson, as President of the 
 United States, was bound to see that the laws were faithfully exe- 
 cuted. However much he might disapprove of their character, or 
 sympathize with those on whose shoulders they fell as a grievous 
 burden, so long as they were laws, he was bound to see them en- 
 forced. A sovereign state, by her ordinances, declared her resolu- 
 tion to violate the law. He, as promptly, by his proclamation, de- 
 clared that the law should be enforced, and the Union preserved. 
 This was an awful moment to the republic. The most important 
 experiments in the history of government had to be tried. The 
 liberties of mankind were staked on the result. The trial had to 
 be made, whether state sovereignty was of any avail, or the federal 
 government absolute and omnipotent. Had South Carolina failed, 
 we should have gone down like the Roman republic into a consoli- 
 dated empire, with all the power centred in the Capitol, governed 
 by venality and corruption. Had Jackson failed, the fraternal bonds 
 of this Union would have been dissolved, and we should have ex- 
 isted for a time as petty states in perpetual warfare, until we again 
 fell as exhausted provinces into the hands of European power. 
 Where so much was at stake, we should rejoice at the glorious 
 result. 
 
 South Carolina acted well — so did Jackson — neither flinched 
 
 from the line of duty they had laid down for themselves — neither 
 
 gave way. In this awful moment, when disrupture and civil war 
 
 seemed inevitable, that magnanimous spirit of compromise in which 
 
 IS 
 
206 
 
 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 the constitution was framed, a°-ain rescued it from destruction. 
 And so will it ever be while the states have courage and indepen- 
 dence to assert their rights, and patriot souls like Jackson shall guide 
 the helm of affairs. 
 
 Having accomplished the work of reformation to which he was 
 called, he cheerfully laid aside the robes of state, which he had 
 worn so well, and retired to those peaceful shades of the Cumber- 
 land, where his earlier years of manhood had been enjoyed, and the 
 last hours of old age were to be spent. 
 
 We have seen the hero in his field of glory — we have followed 
 the statesman step by step, in his arduous task of reformation ; let 
 us now for a moment contemplate the man — the human being of 
 like passions with ourselves. What made him great ? What vir- 
 tues did he possess — what qualities greater than other men? He 
 had a fiery heart ! What gives to the engine, that draws its long 
 and ponderous burthen, such wondrous power ? Tear away those 
 ribs of steel, and you behold a heart of fire — burning, glowing fire. 
 From that fiery heart comes the wondrous power that excites the 
 awe and admiration of the beholder. Jackson, underneath those 
 ribs of flesh, had a fiery heart that nothing could quench — nothing 
 obscure. The deep, earnest enthusiasm he possessed, springing up 
 from this fiery heart, was the source of all his greatness. The cold, 
 the timid, and the plodding spirit, may follow on in well-known 
 paths, but a fiery soul, like Jackson's, fearless, intuitive, bold, and 
 trustful, must lead the way through untried and perilous scenes. It 
 is the heart that inspires the intellect. Its warm and instinctive 
 impulses are more to be trusted than the cold inductions of the un- 
 derstanding. Man lives and is governed by love. The heart sees 
 farther than the head. In its deep and silent revelations — flashes, 
 as it were, from another world — Jackson was made conscious that 
 he was an instrument in the hands of Providence — a being conse- 
 crated for a great purpose. Tell me not of his wickedness! The 
 fiery passions of his heart, the source of all his greatness, may have 
 led him astray; I seek not to palliate his faults. Remember David. 
 If God wrought out history, as it has been recorded, for our instruc- 
 tion, in his sacred volume — if he wrought by the hands of Moses, 
 and Joshua, and Samuel, and David — if Cyrus the Persian was an 
 instrument of his will — if Mahomet the false prophet ; Genseric, 
 and Attila, and Napoleon, the .scourges of wicked nations, found 
 their types foreshadowed in the visions of the prophet — if the 
 might)' men who have risen up from age to age, and wrought out 
 the history of the times in which they lived, were not the children 
 of accident, the sons of a blind fatality — then, I fear not to say, 
 that Andrew Jackson was an instrument, in the hands of God, to 
 work out his purposes among the children of men. The history 
 of the age and country in which he lived, is the history of him- 
 
garland's eulogy. 207 
 
 self. Such as it is, he made it. The stamp and impress of his 
 genius are upon it. Time cannnot efface — eternity will never 
 alter it. 
 
 Jackson was early made conscious that he was an instrument, in 
 the hands of God, tor some great and wise purpose. Often did he 
 slumber in forgetfulness — often fall astray, and grievously err, as it 
 is recorded for our instruction, of men of old. But never could he 
 tear himself away from that guiding hand, never silence the admo- 
 nitions of his heart, which ever whispered, "Remember thou art 
 a child of destiny." 
 
 On the field of battle, in that glorious day when he swept the 
 enemy from before him like a whirlwind, he proclaimed to his 
 conquering soldiers, " Let us be grateful to the God of battles, who 
 has directed the arrows of his indignation against our invaders, 
 while he covered with his protecting shield the brave defenders of 
 their country." When the enemy were no longer to be found in 
 our borders, he appointed a day of thanksgiving and solemn praise 
 for our deliverance. The war-worn veteran, surrounded by his 
 victorious troops, was seen prostrate before the altar of adoration, 
 offering to the God of battles that glory which the world had bt- 
 stowed on him. 
 
 Go with me to the banks of the Coosa. It is midnight. The 
 white tents lie still and shadow-like in the dark forest. The weary 
 soldiers have all retired to their rest. Nothing stirs but the drowsy 
 sentinel, as he walks his allotted round. Follow me to the centre 
 of the encampment — turn aside the curtains of that tent, with the 
 dim lamp glimmering through its folds. Behold the commander- 
 in-chief on bended knees, with the Bible out-spread before him — 
 the picture of his beloved wife on one side, and his sword on the 
 other. This may be a scene of imagination. I would fain hope it 
 were true. So like the chivalric and knightly Christian of old. 
 The deep enthusiasm and trustful soul of Andrew Jackson give me 
 an assurance it was true. If not of the warrior in the pride of 
 victory, I know it was true of the aged and venerable statesman. 
 While chief magistrate of the Union — seated in the marble palace 
 of the nation — the idol of fifteen millions of freemen — surrounded 
 with splendour, possessed of power, this venerable man might be 
 seen in his secret chamber, on his bended knees, with the Bible 
 out-spread before him, and the picture of his beloved and recently- 
 departed wife on one side — but on the other no sword was to be 
 found. Having vindicated the honour of his country, and secured 
 its independence, that sword was treasured up, to be placed in the 
 hands of some future hero, who, inspired by great examples, ".shall 
 conduct himself most worthy of his country." 
 
 Jackson's was a martyr spirit. The deep enthusiasm and bet e- 
 volence of his heart, inspired him with a noble zeal for the good 
 
208 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 of his country and mankind. Ready at all times to make a sacrifice 
 of himself, he could not live for selfish ends. In every hour of 
 peril, when life was to be hazarded, so promptly, so freely, and 
 without reservation did he make the offering, that God, as he did 
 the hand of Abraham, turned aside the impending sword, and let 
 the willing victim escape. On all those trying occasions of his life, 
 when escape seemed to be a miracle, Jackson did not fail humbly 
 to acknowledge the hand of God in his deliverance. 
 
 Were these demonstrations of piety made to be seen of men ? 
 Who will accuse him of hypocrisy ! Who can point to an act of 
 his life that is tainted with insincerity ? He was too earnest, too 
 fearless, to be other than an honest man. He was sincere in all 
 his dealings with himself, with his fellow-men, and with his God. 
 Whatever he did, he did with all his heart. Did he in secret pore 
 over the pages of that book we call the Bible'? it was because he 
 believed it the inspired word of God. 
 
 Did he bow the knee in prayer ? it was because he believed there 
 was a superintending Providence that lent a listening ear to the 
 voice of supplication. Did he take upon his lips the bread and 
 wine as symbols of the broken body and shed blood of Christ ? it 
 was because in his heart he believed that Christ was God clothed 
 in humanity, that he might suffer and die, and open up a way of 
 salvation to the fallen human race. Simple was his faith and sin- 
 cere. Whatever he professed, he believed ; whatever he believed, 
 he practised. 
 
 But let us hasten on to the closing scene — the last hours of this 
 great man. That courage which battle could not intimidate — that 
 fortitude which civil commotions could not shake, have now to be 
 tried in another scene. The frame, that not fatigue, nor exposure, 
 nor hunger could bend, worn by age and disease, is now bending 
 over the grave. Time has wrought its ends, and he is ripe for im- 
 mortality. Behold the man, who has served his country, and served 
 his God. He has no fears, no misgivings : calmly he looks back 
 on a well spent life, joyfully reaches forward with hope, to a bliss- 
 ful immortality. 
 
 When asked by a friend, " what course would he pursue, were 
 he permitted to live his life over again" — with a majestic tone of 
 voice, says that friend, he calmly, but emphatically replied, " Si?-, 
 I mould not accept the boon if it were offered me." His whole 
 countenance, continues that friend, became suddenly illuminated ; 
 his keen piercing eye fixed or> vacancy, appeared to be contem- 
 plating the beautiful scenes of a distant world, as they gradually 
 developed themselves to his view. Delightful thought! Behold- 
 ing with the eye of faith the beautiful fields, the radiant beings, 
 and the never-clouded sun of that spiritual world to which he is 
 
garland's eulogy. 209 
 
 hastening, he would not exchange the prospect and the hope of its 
 enjoyment, for another glorious life like his here on earth. Hea- 
 ven grant, that in the dying hour my faith may be like his ! 
 
 It is a beautiful summer morning! the eighth day of June. Si- 
 lence reigns all around, while anxious countenances behold the 
 death-stricken face of the dying sage. Recovering from his swoon, 
 and propped up in his arm-chair, with his family all around him, 
 he said, " My dear children, do not grieve for me ; it is true I am 
 going to leave you ; I am well aware of my situation ; I have suf- 
 fered much bodily pain ; but my sufferings are as nothing, com- 
 pared with that which our blessed Saviour endured upon that ac- 
 cursed cross, that we might all be saved who put their trust in 
 him." He then took them by the hand, one by one, and express- 
 ing some words of tenderness to each, bade them farewell. The 
 little children he had brought to him, his grandchildren, and the 
 children of his wife's sister ; those who were absent at Sabbath- 
 school, he had them sent for. He then kissed them and blessed 
 them in a manner so touchingly impressive, that language cannot 
 describe it. Seeing his servants anxiously pressing about the doors 
 and windows of his chamber, that they might behold for the last 
 time his living countenance, he took leave of them also. He then 
 spoke for half an hour, and apparently with the power of inspira- 
 tion; for he spoke with calmness, with strength, and with anima- 
 tion. His implicit belief in the Christian religion, and in the plan 
 of salvation as revealed in the Bible — his great anxiety that they 
 should believe in religion, as taught by the Holy Scriptures ; and 
 that, in so doing, they might insure their eternal salvation, and join 
 him in heaven — made the words that fell from his lips deeply im- 
 pressive, awfully sublime. In conclusion, he said, "My dear 
 children and friends and servants, I hope and trust to meet you all 
 in heaven, both white and black." Looking with tender solicitude 
 on his servants, he repeated, " both white and black.'''' These were 
 his last words. With these he ceased to speak. The body calmly 
 sunk into the arms of death, while the immortal spirit, clothed in 
 celestial garments, rose triumphant over death and the grave, and 
 ascended, amid a choir of shouting angels, into the Paradise above. 
 Ministers may preach, divines may write, but the dying example 
 of such a man is worth more than they all. Were I inclined to 
 scepticism, and God knows I am too much given to its folly, the 
 dying testimony of such a man, whose matchless courage feared 
 not death, whose intuitive mind, piercing the shadows of time, be- 
 held truth as it were with the eye of inspiration, would go far to 
 remove it. 
 
 Thus lived, thus died Andrew Jackson : great in war, great in 
 peace, triumphant in death. 
 18* 
 
210 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 Washington was the father of his country. Jackson its defender 
 and saviour. Neither having natural children of their own, they 
 embrace the whole country in the arms of their affection. Out of 
 thirteen scattered, divided, and feeble colonies, Washington, by his 
 valour and fortitude, made a united and prosperous republic. Called 
 to the administration of its affairs in its infancy, at a time when 
 the monarchies of the old world were overturned, and the social 
 institutions of civilized life were torn up from their ancient foun- 
 dations, he had a difficult and a perilous task to perform. With an 
 unsullied reputation, unbounded popularity, and the entire confi- 
 dence of all the people, he had now to throw himself into the 
 whirlpool of party strife, whence he could not hope to escape un- 
 injured. Amid the excited passions, prejudices, contlicting inte- 
 rests, and opposing opinions of those revolutionary times, he did 
 many things that were condemned — many that excited inveterate 
 hostility. He left the government with a large portion, if not a 
 majority of his countrymen opposed to the measures of his admi- 
 nistration. But Washington died. All the men of that generation 
 have been gathered to their fathers. The passions, the prejudices, 
 and the interests that divided them, have all perished and been for- 
 gotten — and now the character of Washington, before a new gene- 
 ration, rises up in unclouded majesty, serene and god-like, receiving 
 the homage of all hearts — his countrymen, and all mankind. 
 
 The tyrant from whose grasp Washington plucked this young 
 republic was driven from our shores, but not conquered. He sought 
 once more to lay hold on his ancient colonies. For their subjuga- 
 tion, he landed the best appointed army of modern times — the con- 
 querors of the conqueror of Europe — on the banks of the Missis- 
 sippi. But while dreaming in his tent of an easy and undisputed 
 conquest, Jackson, like a stroke of lightning, fell upon him, scat- 
 tered his forces, and drove them in consternation and disgrace from 
 our indignant borders. 
 
 What Washington began, Jackson finished ; and, by universal 
 acclamation, was hailed the saviour of his country. But he was 
 not allowed to wear in peace, the laurels he had so nobly won. 
 He, too, was called to administer the affairs of government; and 
 to mingle in the strife and conflicting interests of party. He, too, 
 as we have already seen, did many things to excite opposition — 
 many to awaken the bitterest hostility ; and he left the government 
 with a large portion of his countrymen opposed to the measures of 
 his administration. 
 
 But Jackson has died. All the men of his generation, with their 
 passions, their prejudices, and their conflicting interests, will soon 
 pass away, perish, and be forgotten ; then will the character of Jack- 
 son stand forth in its just proportions; and posterity, without re- 
 
garland's eulogy. 211 
 
 servation or condition, will pronounce him second only to Washing- 
 ton in the hearts of his countrymen. And they two, like twin 
 stars in the firmament, undistinguished, undivided, will shine on 
 from age to age, shedding a glorious lustre on their country, and a 
 benign influence on the glad hearts of millions of freemen, spread 
 from the St. John's to the Del Norte, from the Atlantic to the Pa- 
 cific ocean. 
 
EULOGY 
 
 DELIVERED AT LOWELL, MASS., JULY 15, 1845. 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN A. BOLLES, Esq, 
 
 •^ ^~^s^-*^s\s\s \> \s^s \s~v \s \x\. 
 
 Once more, and for the fourth time in the history of our country, 
 the whole American people are mourners. The death of Washing- 
 ton was the occasion of our first great national sorrow. Our tears 
 were again shed upon that grave which covered at once the remains 
 of Adams and Jefferson. And when we heard that La Fayette had 
 also passed away, we gathered a third time together with universal 
 lamentation. 
 
 Once more are we called upon to notice, with becoming solemnity, 
 the departure from our midst of one who had established himself in 
 the American heart beyond all living example, and whose life we 
 had learned, as a people, to regard as among our choicest national 
 treasures. 
 
 It is right, it is manly, it is every way well to gather in this 
 manner around the tomb of the illustrious dead : — not merely to 
 gratify those generous instincts of humanity which call forth tears 
 for departed friends; not merely that we may give form and utter- 
 ance to emotions which clamour for expression, and will not be sup- 
 pressed ; not merely from regard to the dead, whom we will not let 
 go down, uncommemorated, to everlasting silence; but for the sake 
 of the living also, that we may ourselves become the wiser, the 
 braver, the better, by communing together on our bereavement ; by 
 recalling the generous sentiments and noble deeds of the departed ; 
 by contemplating and holding up to imitation the example of a 
 life well spent, and of a death rich with instruction. In the house 
 of mourning, our passions and prejudices subside before the majesty 
 of death : and we are ready to appreciate and acknowledge the 
 wisdom and the patriotism of those whom we may, while living, 
 have overlooked or misjudged. 
 
 When, therefore, an eminent public officer, or an illustrious pri- 
 vate citizen, is cut down by death, it is, ordinarily, deemed both 
 
 Cil2) 
 
BOLLES's EULOGY. 213 
 
 proper and expedient for our municipal corporations, our constitu- 
 ted authorities and tribunals, to notice the event as a national 
 calamity — to commemorate the virtues of the deceased — and bear 
 living testimony to the world at large, that the general heart is not 
 insensible to the general bereavement, nor dead to the claims of 
 distinguished merit. 
 
 In pursuance of this time-honoured custom, acting upon the im- 
 pulse of an affection which we deeply feel and glory to make 
 known, we are here to-night, to offer our tribute of respect to the 
 name and memory of Andrew Jackson : — a name, how widely known 
 and world-admired ! a name, how familiar and how dear to all living 
 freemen ! a name, that awakens echoes and arouses recollections, 
 and kindles emotions, how warmly, how eloquently, in our hearts! 
 
 But assembled as we are, on an errand of sorrow, our sadness is 
 not unmingled with a livelier feeling and a more cheerful spirit. 
 Our Jackson is dead, indeed, and we mourn for him! But how 
 little, after all, of such a man can die ! The spirit of the fallen 
 hero — the fire that warmed his breast — the love of liberty. — the love 
 of country — cannot die ! Transmitted from sire to son, immortal 
 in its nature, it passes unchanged through a hundred generations! 
 
 Can we wholly abandon ourselves to sorrow, when we recollect 
 at how ripe an age, and after what a life of great and stirring events, 
 he has left us at last the glory of his example? His life may have 
 'come to an end ; but its influence is undying ! The lips that have 
 spoken are silent : but his words of inspiration shall live and echo 
 for ever ! His generous heart has ceased to beat : but its ruling 
 spirit has moved the pulses of countless other hearts, and the elec- 
 tric impulse shall thrill through all coming generations ! 
 
 We must, then, indulge but a qualified sorrow, while we remem- 
 ber how perfectly the great man, whose death we mourn, had ac- 
 complished all the great ends of life : — how deeply he inscribed his 
 name and memory on the history of his country, and on the hearts 
 of his countrymen : — how certainly he has transmitted the glory of 
 his name to the admiration of posterity : — and how, at last, in the 
 fulness of years and of honours — supported by Christian hope, exult- 
 ing in Christian faith, he laid down the burden of human existence, 
 and soared aloft to the glories of immortality! 
 
 Peace be unto the illustrious dead ! After a life so glorious, and 
 a death so happy, we would not, if we could, awaken the hero from 
 his final repose. Be it rather our task to rekindle the ardour of 
 our patriotism at the altar of his example, and encourage ourselves, 
 and our children, by the recollection of his virtues. He has left 
 no children to divide the heritage of his glory : — to his country, 
 therefore, belongs the whole of that splendid inheritance ! 
 
 The life of Andrew Jackson, though, like all others of our race, 
 he was subject to human imperfection, is rich with instruction and 
 
214 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 full of encouragement to every true lover of liberty, or of well- 
 earned praise. 
 
 His origin was humble ; and the poorest may learn from his 
 career, that poverty is no insuperable bar to the soarings and* 
 triumphs of the free spirit. Nay ! Let us rather say, as we re- 
 member how the soil of poverty has sent up its harvest of great 
 men — our Franklin, our Adams, our Henry, and our Jackson ; let 
 us rather say, that, as in the kingdom of geology the everlasting 
 granite, the underlying basis of all other formations, is found in the 
 deepest gulf, yet ever bursting upward from the abyss, towering 
 aloft into highest hills, and crowning the very pinnacles of the 
 world; so in the kingdom of man, the primitive rock, the granite 
 formation, is poverty ; found deepest in the abyss, borne down, bu- 
 ried thousand-fathom deep, overlaid, crushed to the very centre, 
 yet everywhere forcing its way upward, towering aloft and claim- 
 ing kindred with the sky ! 
 
 The parents of General Jackson were natives of Ireland, though 
 of Scottish descent. Weary of that English misrule under which 
 Ireland has so long groaned and bled, and which has driven so 
 many, with hearts panting for freedom, to American shores, they 
 emigrated to this country and settled in South Carolina in 1765, ten 
 years before our new-born freedom was baptized in blood at Con- 
 cord and Bunker Hill. Two sons came with them. Andrew was 
 born in March, 1767, two years after their arrival. His father died 
 about that time, and bequeathed his name to that youngest, sorrow- 
 born child. His widowed mother pressed this nursling legacy to 
 her breast with the same strange mixture of joy and sorrow that 
 agitates our hearts to-night. Oh, could she have foreseen to what 
 bright destiny this child of her mourning should attain, how would 
 her saddened heart have leaped for joy ! Let every mother through- 
 out our land, from what quarter soever of the wide world of tyranny 
 she may have fled to our shores, as she " clips her baby to her 
 bosom," remember that it may be her happy fortune in him to fur- 
 nish another patriot general, or president, to the country that she 
 loves ! 
 
 Andrew Jackson was nine years old when the continental Con- 
 gress proclaimed to an admiring world that " these United Colo- 
 nies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states!" 
 At the age of but thirteen he set the seal of his own blood to his 
 personal efforts in vindicating for his country the freedom thus 
 manfully declared. His mother would have educated him for the 
 special service of God as a preacher. But when the storm of war 
 swept over Carolina, and reached their quiet village of Waxhaw, 
 in 1779, young Jackson was driven from his Latin and Greek, to 
 behold the horrors of warfare in the mangled bodies of his neigh- 
 bours murdered in cold blood by Tarleton's ferocious dragoons, and 
 
BOLLES's EULOGY. 215 
 
 collected as in a hospital, in that very village church from whose 
 pulpit his mother had hoped to hear him proclaiming the gospel of 
 peace. That memorable year beheld this same Irish widow, with 
 American heart, surrendering, with cheerful spirit, her oldest son, 
 to fight the battles of her adopted land! The son thus dedicated 
 to his adopted country perished, that very year, on the field of bat- 
 tle. A few years later, and another of her boys was added to the 
 number of those brave Irish hearts, whose blood has fertilized our 
 soil, and whose dying breath has swelled the breeze of freedom. 
 
 From 1779 to the close of the Revolution, South Carolina en- 
 dured all the horrors of both foreign and domestic war ;. the ordi- 
 nary evils of invasion being unspeakably aggravated by those fierce 
 party strifes which rent asunder the ties of friendship and family, 
 converting love into hatred, and hardening into ferocity the ten- 
 derest affections of the heart. It was within this dreadful region 
 of peril and treachery, of fire and sword, of fraud and force, of 
 rapine and robbery, of midnight burnings and murders, that the 
 Jackson family, — the widow and her boys, — endeavoured to de- 
 fend, as they might, the humble hearth which they called their 
 home. In those days, and in that vicinity, childhood was deprived 
 of its sweet immunities, and every boy who was large enough to 
 lift a musket, like Robert and Andrew Jackson, was taught to ride 
 and fire, — was furnished with horse and gun, and took his part in 
 the midnight watch and the midday fight. 
 
 Such was the active training to war of the future hero of New 
 Orleans ; and at this early age he displayed the same vehement 
 energy, the same unyielding firmness, the same clearness of thought 
 and prompt decision in action, that in after life marked him out as 
 the great captain and commander. 
 
 The insolence of British officers, and the horrors of captivity, 
 were alike unable to bend or to break his inflexible resolution. He 
 was taken captive by a party of marauders, whose officer ordered 
 him to perform some menial service. The indignant boy refused, 
 and claimed to be treated as a prisoner of war. Enraged by his 
 answer, the cowardly officer aimed a sabre-cut at his head — Jack- 
 son received the blow upon his left arm, and the scar of it remained 
 through life, to remind him of his obligations to England. 
 
 Ransomed from a horrible imprisonment by the efforts of his 
 noble mother, he returned home, smitten with the small-pox, to 
 witness the death of his only brother, and to hear that she who had 
 rescued him from captivity, had died by the way-side, among 
 strangers, in bearing her generous aid to others in confinement. 
 The burial-place of the mother of Jackson is unknown ; not a stone 
 has ever marked the spot of her final repose. But her memory is 
 green in ever}- American heart, — her monument is the life of her 
 heroic son. 
 
216 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 Young Jackson is now an orphan — alone in the world at the age 
 of fifteen — cast out upon the wilderness of life, with little be- 
 sides his own free spirit and the good providence of God to sustain 
 him. Who will dare prophesy that this solitary child shall one 
 day become the foremost man in all the land ? 
 
 What a school of trial and of suffering had he been through ! 
 Can we not discern, in this rough discipline, the creative cause of 
 that hardy energy, that unfailing self-reliance, that passionate love 
 of liberty, that undying hatred of English tyranny, which marked 
 his after life? How ought we, then, to reverence that fruitful 
 nursery of great and good men — of great discoverers, of great 
 commanders, of heroic minds, of true heroism — the school of po- 
 verty, of trial, of suffering! The leaders of the world have gra- 
 duated in that stern seminary, as the conquerors of imperial Rome 
 were trained amidst the rigours of the frozen north ! 
 
 In the history of young Jackson from 1782 to 1784, we find ad- 
 ditional instruction. It was his period, and his only period, of 
 levity, of idleness, of pleasure, and of dissipation. But it was ex- 
 ceedingly brief — he parted from it like Hercules from the distaff 
 of Omphale. By his own voluntary act, impelled by his own un- 
 aided, masculine good sense, he casts off his idle habits, abandons 
 his gay associates, removes to North Carolina, and with all the 
 ardour of his character devotes himself to the study of the law. 
 His zeal, his talent, his extraordinary qualities, attract attention, 
 secure him numerous and influential friends, and force open the 
 doors of reluctant fortune. After two years' study he is admitted 
 to the bar, and at the age of twenty-one the governor of North 
 Carolina appoints him solicitor of that portion of the state which 
 included the territory of Tennessee. 
 
 We comfortable travellers upon the iron roads of the north can 
 have very little notion of the experience of a prosecuting officer 
 whose district spread from one settlement to another across a wil- 
 derness of more than two hundred miles — the mountain fastnesses 
 of the Alleghanies — where bloodthirsty savages, and white men 
 almost as lawless, were still fighting for the mastery. Tvvo-and- 
 twenty times did Andrew Jackson, the young lawyer, cross this 
 wild route, in western style, on horseback — a loaded rifle on his 
 shoulder, a blanket for his bed, a bundle of law-papers in one 
 pocket, his ammunition in the other — kindling his own fire from a 
 tinder-box, roasting his bacon or his venison on a forked stick — a 
 buffalo trace for his road, or a trackless forest crossed by torrents 
 whose wild waters no bridge ever spanned — every thicket likely 
 to harbour a scalp-hunting Creek or Chickasaw, every cabin likely 
 to conceal some desperado to whom the officer of the law was an 
 object more hateful than Indian warriors or wild beasts. 
 
 But these inevitable dangers and labours were not enough to fill 
 
BOLLES'S EULOGY. 217 
 
 the measure of his enterprise. Not a party of emigrants can ap- 
 proach this western region, but young Jackson is the foremost volun- 
 teer to protect them and their families along their perilous track, 
 and teach them to repeat his name with eternal gratitude. Not an 
 Indian party is known to be abroad, but Andrew Jackson is upon 
 their trail — fleet of foot, keen of scent and sight, crafty in counsel, 
 sharp and terrible in action. The red man learns the terror of his 
 wrath, and in the simple dialect of the tribe describes him as " the 
 sharp knife" and " the pointed arrow," as his soldiers in later 
 times, admiring his power of endurance, loved to call him " Old 
 Hickory." 
 
 The professional activity and fidelity of Jackson create him ene- 
 mies as well as friends. The Cumberland settlements are crowded 
 with delinquent debtors. In all that region there is but a single 
 lawyer, and he has been secured to their interest. There is no 
 legal aid for anxious creditors until the arrival of Andrew Jackson. 
 On his arrival the creditors swarm about him ; on that day he issues 
 seventy writs at Nashville. The debtors are alarmed and enraged; 
 they resolve to frighten or destroy him. But he will not consent 
 to be intimidated or assassinated. He laughs at their threats : he 
 repels their violence with a courage that crushes alike their hopes 
 and their endeavours. His spirit is aroused. He did not purpose 
 to remain at Nashville, but now he will not go ; henceforth he re- 
 mains in their midst ; Nashville shall be his home ; the laws shall 
 be enforced ! Thus does the fiery furnace reveal the genuine gold, 
 and harden the genuine steel. Thus is Jackson established at 
 Nashville ; and the spot of his early trials and triumphs, consecrated 
 by a long life of glory, and a happy death, has now become another 
 Mount Vernon, towards which, in all after time, shall be turned 
 the footsteps of the lovers of freedom. 
 
 Meantime, Jackson, in the midst of his perils and his labours, his 
 arguing and fighting, becomes a married man, under circumstances 
 romantic to the highest degree, but honourable in every way to his 
 purity of principle and tenderness of heart. Both he and his wife 
 have been slandered by his political foes; but time and truth have 
 refuted the calumny, and silenced the calumniators, and the name 
 of Rachel Jackson, cherished through a long life in the inner 
 sanctuary of her husband's noble heart, shall be remembered and 
 loved by all his countrymen. 
 
 A married man, a successful lawyer, the owner of a valuable 
 plantation, Andrew Jackson, in 1795, is elected by his townsfolk to 
 represent them in the convention which has been summoned to 
 create a constitution for Tennessee. In looking at that instrument, 
 we cannot help fancying that certain of its provisions are the off- 
 spring of his mind, and contain the germs of his subsequent political 
 creed and conduct. 
 19 
 
218 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 That constitution declares that "perpetuities and monopolies aie 
 contrary to the genius of a free government, and shall not be 
 allowed." Was not this his first declaration of war with that 
 mammoth monopoly and would-be perpetuity, the " monster" Bank 
 of the United States ? 
 
 Another article declares that " an equal participation of the free 
 navigation of the Mississippi is one of the inherent rights of the 
 citizens of this state ;. it cannot, therefore, be conceded to any 
 prince, potentate, power, person or persons whatever." 
 
 In this declaration, we behold the dawning of that grand idea 
 which led to the purchase and occupation of Louisiana, and to the 
 battle of New Orleans. How well it harmonizes with that spirited 
 appeal which he made to the Tennessee volunteers in 1812 ! "To 
 the people of the western country," said he, " is peculiarly com- 
 mitted, by nature herself, the defence of the lower Mississippi and 
 the city of New Orleans. At the approach of an enemy in that 
 quarter, the whole western world should pour forth its sons to meet 
 the invader and drive him back to the sea." Two years after this 
 prophetic appeal, how literally and how gloriously, under his direc- 
 tion, were the approaching enemy met by the living torrent of the 
 West, and driven, with appalling carnage, into the waters of the 
 
 gulf! 
 
 Tennessee has now a constitution. The act of Congress of June 
 1, 1796, admits her to the growing family of the Union. She is 
 entitled to a single representative in Congress. Andrew Jackson 
 is not a candidate ; but he is elected as by acclamation. The follow- 
 ing year, at the earliest moment allowed by our organic law, at the 
 age of thirty, he is elevated to the Senate of the United States. 
 
 Were. but. his icidoiced mother now alive ! He remains in the 
 Senate but a single session, and resigns. Political malice has asserted 
 that his resignation was a confession of incompetency. The people 
 of Tennessee do not so regard it. They hasten to offer him additional 
 honours. Scarcely has he vacated his seat in the Senate, ere he is 
 appointed one of the judges in law and equity, of the Supreme 
 Court of Tennessee. In this eminent and trying position he remains 
 for a period of about six years, often desirous of resigning, for his 
 health is infirm, and his labours are exhausting, but always com- 
 pelled to forego his wishes by the remonstrances of the best and 
 ablest men in the state, who exhort him to remain upon the bench, 
 "that our common country may derive additional benefits from 
 those powers of thought, and independence of mind, which nature 
 never designed should be lost in retirement." He yields to their 
 solicitations, and passes through a judicial career, the relation of 
 which would cause to tingle the ears of our city-bred and delicately 
 nurtured judges. 
 
 At his first court, the supremacy of the law is made dependent 
 
BOLLES'S EULOGY. 219 
 
 on his personal courage and spirit. A gigantic ruffian, indicted for 
 some atrocity, resists the sheriff, and will not be arrested. The 
 timid officer accordingly makes out his return, " Russell Bean re- 
 fuses to be taken." Judge Jackson replies, " Such a return is a 
 legal absurdity. Bean must be taken. If needful, call to your 
 aid the posse comitatus!" The sheriff waits till the judges are on 
 their way to dinner, and then summons them, as part of the posse, 
 to his aid. Judge Jackson responds to the summons, " Yes, sir, I 
 will attend you, and see that you do your duty." Bean, armed 
 with dirk and pistols, awaits their movements. Jackson calls for 
 a loaded pistol and advances. Bean retires. The judge commands 
 him to stop and submit to the law. Bean hesitates, throws down 
 his weapons, and declares, " I will surrender to you, judge, but to 
 no one else !" 
 
 The honesty and fidelity of his judicial conduct excites the 
 wrath of a multitude of fraudulent land speculators. As he is ap- 
 proaching Jonesborough to hold his court, he is informed that a mob 
 has assembled, resolved to tar and feather him on his arrival. Half 
 sick at the time, and scarce able to keep in his saddle, he hastens 
 his advance, and reaches his hotel so exhausted that he is lifted 
 from his horse to a bed. The mob arrive also, under the direction 
 of a Colonel Harrison. General Jackson arises at once," throws 
 wide open the door of his room, and forwards a message, " Tell 
 Colonel Harrison my door is open to receive him and his regiment, 
 whenever they choose to wait upon me, and that I hope the colo- 
 nel's chivalry will induce him to lead his men, and not follow them !" 
 
 On receiving this significant message, the crowd dispersed. Not 
 one of them was ambitious of the honour of first entering the sick 
 man's room ! 
 
 Before leaving the bench, Judge Jackson was appointed major- 
 general of the militia of Tennessee. He vacated his judicial office 
 and retired to private life in 1804, engaging with his own hands 
 in the cultivation of his farm, after manufacturing his own farming 
 utensils, and glorying in his stock, especially of horses, in the 
 rearing of which he took peculiar pleasure. His house was the 
 favourite resort of the most prominent men both of Tennessee and 
 of other states. He was of that " prompt, frank, and ardent soul," 
 as Burr described him ; of that genial and hearty temper and dis- 
 position, which secure most effectually the good will of' man ; and 
 all who came into his presence were convinced that a rising career 
 of distinction lay yet before him. 
 
 The eight years thus spent in comparative seclusion were not 
 entirely without incidents which illustrate the sterling qualities of 
 the man. It was during this interval that he became involved in 
 the bankruptcy of a friend and partner at Nashville. The moment 
 he became aware of the condition of the partnership, he dissolved 
 
220 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 it, sold his house and plantation, paid off every debt, and, removing 
 into a log-cabin, patiently began the world anew. Nor was it long 
 before his energy, industry, and frugality brought around him once 
 more the comforts so nobly sacrificed to maintain his integrity. 
 
 During this same period his business requiring him to visit Mis- 
 sissippi, he is obliged to pass through the country of the Chickasaw 
 and Choctaw Indians. At the Indian agent's station he finds a 
 laro-e party of American emigrants detained under the pretence 
 of a want of passports. He is indignant that American citizens 
 should be thus waylaid by a government officer and compelled to 
 purchase of him their food and forage at enormous prices. He 
 advises them to harness their horses, proceed on their journey, and 
 shoot as a highwayman any one that shall attempt to detain them. 
 The agent then inquires if he himself has a passport. " Yes, sir," 
 replies the general, " I always carry mine with me. I am a free- 
 born American citizen, and that, under the constitution and laws, 
 is my passport to go wherever my business calls me." He pro- 
 ceeds upon his journey. Returning, he is told that the agent, with a 
 party of one hundred and fifty whites and Indians, is resolved to pre- 
 vent his passage until he will produce a passport. He hurries for- 
 ward with his party of negroes — sends word to the agent that he 
 must interfere only at the peril of his life, and then presents him- 
 self, rifle in hand, at the agency. The Indians recognise their old 
 acquaintance " Pointed Arrow," and welcome his arrival ; the agent 
 is cowed into sullen hospitality, invites the general to pay him a 
 visit, and is wholly silent on the subject of passports. Jackson in- 
 forms the secretary of war of the occurrence, and the agent is dis- 
 missed from office. 
 
 In 1812, war is declared between Great Britain and the United 
 States. The news has scarcely reached Nashville when General 
 Jackson is in the field, and, through the governor, tenders to the 
 president the services of two thousand five hundred volunteers of 
 his division, headed by himself. Admirable promptness! He had 
 long anticipated that very day. He had noted, with growing im- 
 patience, every new aggression of Great Britain upon our com- 
 merce, and every new impressment of our seamen. The seven 
 thousand American sailors, torn from their country's flag, and their 
 own firesides, had, every one, a voice in Jackson's heart. The old 
 scar on Jackson's arm throbbed and tingled at each fresh English 
 insult; the boy of fourteen was born again, and lived again, in the 
 man of forty-five — and at the first whisper of war his impatient 
 sword leaped, lightning-like, from its scabbard ! 
 
 Government accepts in part the offer of Jackson, and orders him 
 to organize and equip a force of fifteen hundred volunteers, and 
 inarch on New Orleans. On the 10th of December, General Jack- 
 son addresses the secretary of war — " I am now at the head of 
 
EULOGY. 221 
 
 two thousand and seventy volunteers — the choicest of our citizens. 
 They will rejoice at the opportunity of placing the American eagle 
 on the ramparts of Mobile, Pensacola, and St. Augustine." In the 
 heart of winter these hardy sons of Tennessee embark upon their 
 voyage of more than a thousand miles. The earth is buried in 
 snow : the rivers are full of running ice. How shall they over- 
 come the dangers of the Cumberland, of the Ohio, of the Missis- 
 sippi ? Already they have answered this inquiry. A thousand 
 miles of their voyage are accomplished — and on the 15th of Feb- 
 ruary they bivouac at Natchez. All eyes and all hopes are direct- 
 ed towards New Orleans. But at Natchez their advance is coun- 
 termanded by orders from the department at Washington. " Their 
 services will not be needed at New Orleans : they may return to 
 Tennessee!" "Let us then," wrote Jackson, "let us march to the 
 lines of Canada, and wipe from our military character the stain of 
 recent disasters." But no ; a new secretary of war has adopted 
 new policy; the cold, cruel order, more intolerable than winter 
 march or the brunt of battle — the order is, " Discharge your troops ; 
 return to Tennessee!" What sorrow, what indignation, what rase, 
 now filled the hearts of these brave volunteers and of their excited 
 commander! The order of return will be obeyed. The order of 
 discharge is disregarded. "I shall commence the line of march on 
 Thursday the 25th instant," wrote Jackson ; " should the contractor 
 not feel himself justified in sending on provisions for my infantry, 
 or the quartermaster wagons for the transportation of my sick, I 
 shall dismount the cavalry and carry them on, providing the means 
 for their support from my own private funds. If those fail, I thank 
 God we have plenty of horses to feed my troops to the Tennessee, 
 and there I know my country will meet me with ample supplies. 
 These brave men, at the call of their country, voluntarily rallied 
 around its insulted standard. They followed me to the field : I 
 shall carefully march them back to their homes." 
 
 And he kept his word. On his own credit he borrowed $5000, 
 which he expended in whatever would most contribute to the com- 
 fort of his returning troops. To those brave men he spoke in words 
 of cheerful encouragement. " I will not leave one of the sick," 
 said he, " nor one of the detachment behind. I led you here : I 
 will lead you back to your country and friends. The sick, as far 
 as I have the power and means, shall be made comfortable. If 
 any die, I will pay to them the last tribute of respect ; they shall 
 be buried with the honours of war!" 
 
 He gave up to the sick and weary soldier his own horses, and 
 set his staff the example of marching on foot. One man is reported 
 in a dying condition, whom it was useless to remove. " Not a 
 man shall be left," said he, " who has life in him !" And by that 
 poor fellow, jolted in hip rough cart, along those horrible roads, 
 IP*- 
 
222 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 does he walk with tender solicitude. The sick man opens his 
 eyes, and asks, in half-uttered accents, " Where am 77" How did 
 the voice of his commander recall him from the dead by the heart- 
 stirring answer, " On your way home, my good fellow!" From 
 that moment he recovered, and before their homeward march was 
 completed, he was in perfect health. 
 
 Thus ended Jackson's first campaign. Though indignant, he is 
 not discouraged. Again he offers to march on Canada. " I have," 
 
 DO J 
 
 wrote he, " a few standards, wearing the American eagle, that I 
 should be happy to place on the ramparts of Maiden!" "What 
 would have been the result," says one of his eulogists, " if the 
 command of the north-western army had, at the opening of the 
 war, been intrusted to a man, who, in action, was ever so fortunate 
 that his vehement will seemed to have made destiny capitulate to 
 his designs?" 
 
 But the fortunes of Jackson were to lead him to glory in another 
 direction. Southern Tennessee, Mississippi, Georgia, and the 
 scattered settlements of the Alabama, were now panic-stricken, and 
 bleeding under the tomahawks of the Creek or Muscogee warriors, 
 more than four thousand of whom were let loose upon the devoted 
 south-west, by their Christian and chivalric allies of Great Britain. 
 Three hundred whites had been massacred at Fort Mims in a single 
 day, and every post, and settlement, and cabin, on that frontier, 
 was in danger. Under these circumstances, Jackson was again 
 summoned to the field, with two thousand five hundred volunteers. 
 He was then confined to his sick chamber, his left arm shattered by 
 a pistol-ball, and supported in a sling. But he obeyed the call to 
 arms ! " It is surely high gratification," writes he to a friend, on 
 the 7th of October, 1813, " to learn that the Creeks are so attentive 
 to my situation as to save me the pain of travelling. I must not 
 be outdone in politeness, and will, therefore, endeavour to meet 
 them on the middle ground." 
 
 I cannot dwell, as I would, on the memorable events of that 
 brief but extraordinary Creek campaign. The troops, both volun- 
 teers and militia, were ready at his call ; but tormenting delays and 
 vexations attended the collection of adequate stores and provisions. 
 Impatient of these delays, Jackson resolved, at last, to cut his way, 
 at all hazards, to the very heart of the Indian country, and there 
 end the war by a sudden and fatal blow. Onward he went, with 
 scarcely a week's supply, through trackless forests, and over rugged 
 mountains, and across almost impenetrable swamps. The first im- 
 portant battle is at Tallushatchee — a name that will ring sadly in 
 the ear of every surviving Creek to the end of time. And yet 
 shall the red man and the white remember the terrors of that field 
 with mingled emotions, for it bears immortal testimony to the human- 
 ity, as well as the military genius, of Jackson. Among the slain is 
 
BOLLES'S EULOGY. 223 
 
 found an Indian mother, 'an infant boy, unhurt, sucking her lifeless 
 breast.' Jackson requests the captive women to take care of the 
 child. They refuse ; "All his relations," say they, " are dead — kill 
 him too !" How did those words thrill through the heart of the 
 orphan general! "All my relations, also," thought he, "are 
 dead !" He took the infant child to his own tent — with his own 
 hand he feeds him with sugared water — he sends him home to 
 Nashville to become the adopted child of the Hermitage — with the 
 aid of his willing wife he rears that boy to manhood, educates him 
 to business, engages all his affections — and when Lincoyer dies, 
 that affectionate and childless couple weep over his grave and re- 
 member him as a son. 
 
 From Tallushatchee, with a half-starved army, the general, by 
 forced marches, day and night, pushes on to Talladega, a friendly 
 fort beleaguered by one thousand hostile Creeks. Scarcely pausing 
 to eat their meager rations, but appeasing their hunger as they may 
 with a handful of parched corn, or a few acorns snatched from the 
 ground as they hurry on, these indomitable volunteers rush ever 
 forward, and ere the besieging force are aware of the presence of 
 an enemy, they are wholly surrounded, and the thunderbolt of war 
 has overwhelmed them with sudden destruction. 
 
 The friendly garrison thus relieved, are themselves almost 
 starving, and Jackson must again push forward with famishing 
 troops. One of his soldiers discovers the general seated upon a log, 
 engaged in eating with apparent relish. Supposing that Jackson 
 had secreted something to supply his own want, he asks for a share 
 of his rations. " I never turn away the hungry," said the general, 
 " while I have anything to give them !" and so saying, he drew 
 from his pocket a handful of acorns ! With such a commander, 
 his soldiers are ready to endure all that human fortitude can bear. 
 But actual starvation will break the heart, and destroy the discipline 
 of an army. What wonder, then, that a few days after the victory 
 of Talladega, we find the militia in open mutiny, clamouring for 
 bread, and actually marching homeward. Jackson believes that re- 
 lief is at hand — he feels that the mutiny must be quelled. His 
 volunteers remain true ; with them he throws himself across the 
 path of his retreating militia, whom he threatens with instant 
 death if they do not return at once to duty ; and they submit to his 
 iron will. But the volunteers themselves are starving and disaf- 
 fected ; they regret that they have been used as Jackson's instruments 
 to suppress the mutiny : they resolve themselves to desert the field 
 on the day following. They attempt their project — but behold ! 
 across their path stands that terrible leader, backed up by the fixed 
 bayonets of his now obedient militia ; death to the disobedient ! 
 Tn* their turn they submit: and thus, by a double victory, unparal- 
 
224- MONUMENT TO .IACKSON. 
 
 leled in the annals of war, has General Jackson conquered his own 
 army ! 
 
 Jackson now assures the army that if relief is not received within 
 forty-eight hours, he will lead them homeward. Thus two linger- 
 ing days pass by, and no provisions arrive ; the soldiers remind him 
 of his promise, and with a heavy heart, he orders their retreat. 
 Within a taw miles, however, they meet a herd of one hundred 
 and fifty beeves. Their hunger is appeased, but their discontents 
 remain. They will not retrace their steps. One company, in open 
 disobedience, actually resumes its march. Once more, Jackson, 
 with his staff, casts himself in their front, commands them to return, 
 and orders the first man shot who advances a step. They are in- 
 timidated, and retire to the main body. Here, however, they dis- 
 cover the entire army — mutinous, resolved — in motion homeward. 
 In this awful moment the heart of Old Hickory never quails. He 
 snatches up a musket, throws it with his one serviceable arm across 
 his horse's neck, plants himself alone before the entire brigade, and 
 with flaming eye and earnest voice, declares that he will drive a 
 bullet through the false heart of the coward who first deserts the 
 field. It was an instant of tremendous responsibility — one man 
 against a host ! But honour and justice, courage and patriotism, 
 were on the one side, and conscious guilt upon the other. The 
 army pauses and gazes silently on that stern countenance and com- 
 manding form. His staff rally at his side. Two companies place 
 themselves under his direction. The hearts of the rebellious host 
 relent, and again that iron will has conquered them ; they declare 
 themselves ready to follow wherever he leads. He leads them back 
 to duty. 
 
 I must not linger over the subsequent exciting scenes of this 
 Creek campaign. New discouragements arise, new troops, also, ar- 
 rive to replace those who have tarnished the glory of their valour 
 by the shame of their mutiny. Jackson pushes onward with eight 
 hundred men. On the night of the 21st January, 1814, and on the 
 following day, he gained the double victory of Emuckfaw, and on 
 the 24-th, the still more desperate field of Enotochopco, wherein 
 the personal valour that he displayed was like that of Napoleon at 
 the bridge of Lodi. 
 
 The Creeks, thus defeated in a succession of conflicts, retire more 
 deeply within the Indian country, and concentrate themselves for 
 a final struggle at Tohopeka, or the Horseshoe bend of the river 
 Talapoosa. Within their camp are a thousand warriors ; secure, as 
 they believe, awaiting the arrival of him whose destiny it was to 
 Income the destroying angel of their bloodthirsty race. Hemmed 
 in by the river, their peninsula of one hundred acres is protected 
 on the landward side by a high and ingenious double breastwork of 
 logs, perforated for musketry. Their doom is delayed, however, 
 
BOLLES'S EULOGY. 225 
 
 by new discords among the turbulent soldiery of Jackson. Sternest 
 measures of military discipline become indispensable ; for even 
 general officers are found fanning the flames of disaffection. An 
 example must be made. John Wood, once a deserter, now in open 
 mutiny, is seized, court-martialled, condemned, and shot in sight of 
 the whole army. The event occasions great excitement : but it 
 teaches the needful lesson ; and henceforward we find no more of 
 mutiny or insubordination. 
 
 On the 27th of March, at 10 A. M., Jackson and his forces are 
 before the breastworks of Tohopeka. General Coffee crosses the 
 river, and surrounds the bend with a cordon of cavalry and friendly 
 Indians. General Jackson plants his two pieces of artillery before 
 the breastwork. The friendly Indians swim the river, and set fire 
 to the rear of the village. Jackson's infantry have stormed the 
 barrier of logs ; — it is carried : — the Tennesseeans are within the 
 camp ! 
 
 And now, between their blazing village and the murderous fire 
 of the storming party, these fierce and sullen sons of the forest 
 fight their last desperate battle; refusing all quarter; answering 
 offered mercy with a shower of bullets, and only ending their 
 struggle when darkness rendered further strife impossible. Eight 
 hundred braves perished in those eight hours of carnage. Three 
 hundred of their women and children were taken prisoners. Thus 
 set, for ever, in smoke and slaughter, the sun of the Muscogees! 
 We mourn over the infatuation which maddened this unhappy- 
 tribe ; we abhor that English policy which incited them to hostili- 
 ty ; we admire the bold, brave arm which crushed that tribe, and 
 humbled its survivors into willing and lasting peace. 
 
 After the battle a young Creek warrior, severely wounded, was 
 brought before General Jackson, and a surgeon was called to dress 
 his wounds. With his rude notions of war he regarded his death 
 as inevitable, and looking earnestly at the general as his limb was 
 bound up, he exclaimed, " Cure him, kill him again ?" Jackson 
 assured him that he was safe, and moved by his youth, as he had 
 been previously affected by the helpless infant at Tallushatchee, he 
 sent him home to Nashville, watched over his interests, and esta- 
 blished him in a respectable trade. 
 
 How freshly and sweetly, like blossoms on the battle-field, do 
 such noble and generous acts spring up amid the waste of war! 
 And how much of beauty and of tenderness do they add to the 
 heroic strength of a great commandpr! They are like a garland 
 of roses around the iron helmet of the warrior. A hundred gene- 
 rations have wept over the verses of Homer which describe the 
 parting of the Trojan chief from his infant boy as he goes out to 
 battle. American hearts shall throb with tearful pleasure, through 
 
226 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 all time, as they think of the tenderness of Jackson towards the 
 infant Lincoyer, and the youthful captive of Tohopeka. 
 
 This battle concluded that terrible Indian war — the most terrible 
 in the annals of our Indian warfare. 
 
 And now tbe triumphant general retires, amidst the acclamations 
 of the whole south-west, as ardent in their gratitude as they are 
 valiant in battle, his health impaired, to seek refreshment in fire- 
 side quiet and repose. To that fireside, for many succeeding years, 
 did the surviving warriors of the Creek nation resort, to display 
 their love and veneration for the great chief who had conquered 
 their nation by his valour, and their hearts by his kindness. 
 
 In closing this chapter of his history, it has been truly said, by 
 one of his biographers, that " General Jackson had now fought him- 
 self into the public confidence, and the results of his last daring ex- 
 pedition electrified the people of Tennessee. Men felt safe under 
 his command, and every eye was directed to him as to the day-star 
 of his country's glory." 
 
 His appointment to the rank of major-general in the army of 
 the United States, conferred upon him soon after his return to Nash- 
 ville, was the expression of that national regard which his conduct 
 had so warmly awakened. 
 
 His next public service was in negotiating, under the direction 
 of the general government, a treaty of amity on the borders of 
 Florida, in the summer of 1814, with the remaining Creeks. Du- 
 ring this negotiation, General Jackson entered into correspondence 
 with the Spanish governor of Florida, residing at Pensacola. Eng- 
 lish forces, both naval and military, together with hostile Indians 
 under the command and drill of English officers, had been permitted 
 by the Spanish authorities to rendezvous, recruit, and manoeuvre at 
 Pensacola, and to use it as in all respects the head-quarters of the 
 British forces. Colonel Nichols, of the British army, had issued 
 his proclamation to the people of Louisiana and Kentucky, dated 
 "Head-Quarters, Pensacola," inciting the Louisianians and Ken- 
 tuckians to revolt, informing them that he now had under his direc- 
 tion " a numerous British and Spanish squadron," and "a large 
 body of Indians commanded by British officers," ready to be let 
 loose upon the south-western states. It was through Spanish ports 
 and Spanish aid in Florida that Great Britain kept up her connex- 
 ion with the savages of that region. In a word, Spanish Florida 
 had grossly abused and violated her neutrality, and allowed herself 
 to be made the instrument of our enemies, whose military projects 
 were then concentrating themselves upon our settlements along the 
 Gulf of Mexico. 
 
 General Jackson was not the man to stand idly by and gaze upon 
 the progress of events like these. He first endeavoured to bring 
 the governor of Florida to a sense of duty by correspondence ; but 
 
BOLLES'S EULOGY. 227 
 
 falsehood and equivocation were the substance of the Spaniard's 
 reply. Finding that military force alone could avail in this emer- 
 gency, that the nest of hornets required to be seized and crushed 
 by a hand of mail, General Jackson directed his march on Pensa- 
 cola. He encamped before it, November 6th, 1814, and sent a flag 
 to the governor. The governor fired upon the messenger. British 
 troops filled the forts and manned the batteries ; British men-of- 
 war, ready for action, filled the bay and commanded the approaches 
 to the town. 
 
 But neither British nor Spanish forces could resist the furious 
 assault of the American general. Pensacola, like Tohopeka, was 
 carried by storm ; and on the 7th day of November, just two months 
 and a day before the battle of New Orleans, the American flag 
 Avaved over those treacherous walls which had so long sheltered 
 our foes — the British fleet was driven from the bay, and their 
 savage allies to the eversrlades. 
 
 This brilliant and successful movement of Jackson, however 
 much it may be criticized by party malignity, was a just and manly 
 act — in strict accordance with the principles of international law, 
 and in exact conformity to the requirements of national honour and 
 national safety. It was a lesson to false and treacherous neutrals, 
 that whenever they become, in fact, the allies of our enemies, they 
 shall be subjected to the treatment of belligerents. 
 
 From Pensacola, General Jackson was summoned to the defence 
 of New Orleans. He arrived there early in December, and entered 
 upon his arduous duties with a zeal worthy of one who was about, 
 in the language of Jefferson, "to fill the measure of his country's 
 glory !" 
 
 An immense naval and military force is known to be approaching 
 the mouths of the Mississippi. The veteran soldiers of Great Bri- 
 tain, flushed with their victories in the peninsula of Spain, have 
 now come to crush the raw recruits of America. New Orleans 
 is wholly unprepared for resistance. There seem to be no means 
 of preparation for defence. Arms and armed men are alike want- 
 ing. The governor of the state has no confidence in the fidelity of 
 the people. They are of mixed races and uncertain allegiance. 
 The national feeling has scarcely had time to plant itself in their 
 affections. By proclamations, and otherwise, efforts have been 
 made to excite them to revolt. All is confusion, perplexity, and 
 panic. 
 
 But General Jackson has arrived. If any man can save them, it 
 is he. He arrives, exhausted by fatigue and anxiety ; feeble in 
 health : fit rather for the hospital than the field, yet wearing that 
 cheerful serenity which awakens hope, and inspires confidence in 
 the beholder. The city grows calm as it beholds his clear blue eye 
 radiating only an assurance of success ! He reviews the city troops ; 
 
228 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 he visits every fort along the river ; he inspects the militia ; he 
 searches the city for arms and ammunition ; he summons the troops 
 of his division from every direction to march, with hot haste, day 
 and night, towards the point of danger; he calls on the legislature 
 of Louisiana for levies of money, of men, of the munitions of war ; 
 it is necessary, in his judgment, to convert that whole region into 
 one great camp. No emissary of the enemy shall enter without 
 his knowledge ; no spy or traitor shall depart without his consent. 
 The crisis is one of life or death to his country. Upon him rests 
 the great burden of responsibility. He assumes it, and on the 15th 
 day of December, martial law is proclaimed in New Orleans! 
 
 At noon, on the 23d of December, he is informed that a portion 
 of the British troops, to the number of three or four thousand men, 
 have effected a landing nine miles below the city. He resolves to 
 give them battle that very night. As he marches out of the city 
 his ear is pained and his heart touched by the groans and cries of a 
 multitude of panic-stricken females. He speaks to them through 
 Aid-de-camp Livingston: he bids them feel no fear; he pledges 
 himself that the enemy shall never reach the city. They believe 
 him. " His words are like electricity ;" to know that he is fearless 
 inspires them also with confidence. 
 
 On the following morning:; the news of last night's battle comes 
 in. Four thousand British troops have been assailed and driven 
 from their position, and forced with slaughter from point to point 
 for nearly a mile, by half that number of American militia and 
 riflemen. What joy, what pride, what exultation flies through the 
 city, and fills the whole encampment! Never was blow more op- 
 portune inflicted. It raised the courage of our own troops to the 
 highest pitch ; it kindled the enthusiasm of the people; it checked 
 and discouraged our enemies. 
 
 From the morning of this glorious 23d till the evening of the 
 27th — for five successive days and four successive nights — is Gene- 
 ral Jackson occupied, without one hour of sleep or of repose, in 
 strengthening his lines, in preparing for that deadly assault which 
 he knows must come, and which may come at any hour. How he 
 survived this amazing trial of his physical powers of endurance, 
 we know not; but by the good Providence of God he did, and on 
 the evening of the 27th he slept. 
 
 Between that day and the glorious 8th of January, the British 
 forces made two successive but unsuccessful assaults upon the line 
 of Jackson's defences. Their batteries effected a few small breaches 
 in the works ; and these Jackson, with ready ingenuity, caused to 
 be filled up with those cotton-bales which have since given their 
 name to that entire breastwork. It marks the calmness of the gene- 
 ral's mood, after this long period of sleepless days and nights, that 
 when one of the excited merchants of the city came out to com- 
 
BOLLES's EULOGY. 229 
 
 plain of the seizure of his cotton-bags, the general coolly put a 
 musket into his hands, and pointing to the bales in the breastwork, 
 replied — " There is your property. I know nobody that has any 
 better right than you to defend it !" 
 
 At last the morning of the eighth of January dawns on the val- 
 ley of the Mississippi. Nine thousand British troops, who for the 
 last eight days have slept or watched upon the field within sight of 
 our works, are seen advancing with admirable precision to attack, 
 for the last time, that famous breastwork, behind which stand three 
 thousand seven hundred brave, though undisciplined Americans, 
 ready to fight and to die for country and for home, for glory and 
 for freedom ! 
 
 The front ranks of the British columns bring fascines to fill the 
 ditch, and scaling-ladders to surmount the breastwork. Their na- 
 tional pride and personal courage are stimulated into full exercise : 
 their cupidity and lust have been kindled into flame by that infa- 
 mous watchword of " Beauty and booty ;" and already they revel 
 in the anticipated license that is to follow their easy victory. They 
 advance under cover of a storm of shot and shells and rockets. 
 They are met by the thunder of our own artillery, and by that 
 deadly volley of musketry, which rolled along our breastwork with 
 one incessant peal that knew no pause in its portentous music. An 
 invisible foe mows down their ranks, as if the very scythe of death 
 were swinging: from end to end of their columns. Their three 
 leading generals are killed or mortally wounded, when, flying from 
 this shower of death, that boastful soldiery find refuge beyond the 
 range of our fire. Rallied and re-formed by their remaining gene- 
 ral, they again advance; but again that incessant volley of mus- 
 ketry is heard, like the roll-call of fate, and again they fly ! 
 
 The battle of New Orleans is ended! Thov sands of British 
 dead encumber the battle-field. The American loss, in killed and 
 wounded, is but thirteen! 
 
 History records no victory like this. It was the last great act 
 of the war. Its character impresses itself upon all minds and hearts 
 beyond the power of words. 
 
 Twelve days after the battle the victorious general enters that 
 grateful city, in the midst of a triumph as enthusiastic and sincere 
 as ever greeted the approach of a conqueror. 
 
 " These," says the historian of America, "these were great deeds 
 for the nation. For himself, he did a greater. Had not Jackson 
 been renowned for the vehement impetuosity of his passions, for 
 his defiance of others' authority, and the unbending vigour of his 
 self-will? Behold the saviour of Louisiana, all garlanded with 
 victory, viewing around him the city he had preserved, the mai- 
 dens and children whom his heroism had protected, stand in the 
 presence of a petty judge, who gratifies his wounded vanity by an 
 20 
 
230 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 abuse of his judicial power. Every breast in the crowded audi- 
 ence heaves with indignation. He — the passionate — the impetuous 
 — he, whose power was to be humbled, whose honour questioned, 
 whose laurels tarnished, alone stood sublimely serene : and when 
 the craven judge trembled, and faltered, and dared not proceed, — 
 himself, — the arraigned one, — bade him take courage, and stood by 
 the law, even in the moment when the law was made the instru- 
 ment of insult and wrong on himself, — at the moment of his most 
 perfect claim to the highest civic honours!" 
 
 The incident thus alluded to deserves a more minute recital, for 
 it shows that though, in the hour of national peril, the man we 
 mourn was ready, with heroic courage, to save his country by the 
 boldest exercise of military power, he was equally prompt, on the 
 return of peace, to sacrifice himself to maintain the ordinary work- 
 ings of the ordinary laws and institutions of his country. 
 
 After New Orleans had been placed under martial law, Judge 
 Hall, by a writ of habeas corpus, undertook to interfere with a 
 military arrest. Jackson forthwith ordered the intermeddling 
 judge beyond his camp. On the return of peace, the judge also 
 returned, and resumed his judicial functions, summoning the general 
 to appearand answer for this alleged contempt. Jackson appeared, 
 and his counsel, when they would have argued his defence, were 
 silenced by the judge, who proceeded to impose upon the general 
 a fine of one thousand dollars. This act was most deeply resented 
 by the people of New Orleans, who filled the court, and whose en- 
 thusiasm for the saviour of their city knew no bounds. But Gene- 
 ral Jackson restrained and rebuked their fervour, declaring his 
 cheerful submission to the law, and giving them to understand that 
 the same arm which had saved the city, should be raised, if need- 
 ful, to protect the court. The citizens, indignant at this act of 
 judicial revenge, were nevertheless withheld from violence. They 
 offered to replace the thousand dollars which had thus been wrung 
 from their general ; but he refused their offer. He foresaw the day 
 — too long delayed — but which came at last, when 20,000,000 
 freemen, speaking through the national Congress, should vindicate 
 the rectitude of his conduct, and declare to mankind, that America 
 does not willingly allow her valiant defenders to be fined and re- 
 proached for effecting their country's salvation. 
 
 Two years of peace and private life now intervened. The 
 Seminole campaign of 1817, recalls General Jackson to military 
 activity. He is once more ordered to suppress Indian hostility and 
 Spanish perfidy, along the borders and in the very heart of Florida. 
 Again, as three years before, and for similar reasons, he takes 
 possession of Pensacola, and humbles the pride of the Spaniard. 
 The Spanish minister complains of aggression, but our executive 
 replies to his murmuring, and demonstrates to the world that our 
 
BOELEs's EULOGY. 231 
 
 conduct is just. Congress itself takes up the subject, and although 
 party vehemence assails, the national will protects the character 
 and conduct of Jackson. 
 
 Some of his political adversaries have complained that the force 
 which he led against the Seminoles was so large that the Indians 
 were overpowered almost without striking a blow in self-defence, 
 and with little effusion of blood. We cannot join in any such 
 censure. We are content to approve the wisdom of his policy, 
 and to admire the energy of his action, the celerity of his move- 
 ments, the brilliancy of his success. 
 
 Others of his political foes have loudly condemned him as a 
 monster of cruelty, because, under his impartial direction, the laws 
 of war made no discrimination between bloodthirsty savages and 
 English outlaws, associated with them in their enterprises. The 
 two Englishmen, who thus felt the severity they deserved, have 
 awakened far more sympathy in the gentle bosoms of American 
 partisans, than in the breasts of their own countrymen. Parliament, 
 ever ready to assert the extremest right of British subjects, investi- 
 gated the case of Arbuthnot and Ambrister, and found in their 
 execution no cause of complaint. 
 
 The fatigues and exposures of the Seminole campaign exhausted 
 the physical energies of the commander, and his weeping soldiers 
 carried him homeward through the swamps of Florida in an almost 
 dying condition. But his wife now flies to his side, and her gentle 
 arms rescue her husband from death, that he may still further serve 
 and save his country. 
 
 There is not time for us to follow him through his subsequent 
 career as governor of Florida, or as member, for the second time, 
 of the Senate of the United States. 
 
 Higher dignities and a wider sphere of action await him. A 
 grateful and admiring people, long familiar with his patriotism, his 
 courage, and firmness, summon him to the highest honour in their 
 gift. He is elected president of the United States, and enters upon 
 his duties on the 4th of March, 1829. 
 
 It was my good fortune to witness his inauguration, and never 
 can I forget the image of that great man as he then appeared — the 
 snows of age scattered upon his reverend head, but with unbending 
 form, and eye of youthful fire — the visible representative of the 
 true American spirit ! 
 
 He came to the presidency !n an hour when his country most 
 needed his aid. 
 
 In our relations with various foreign states, there existed per- 
 rlexities and embarrassments, which no spirit less resolute, and no 
 name less potent, than his, could well have resolved! It was his 
 happy lot, carrying into vigorous action the just policy of "the 
 Father of his Country," to remove every embarrassment, and main- 
 
232 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 tain undisturbed the honour of our government, and the blessings 
 of peace. 
 
 In our domestic condition and infernal policy, there existed 
 evils, and there impended perils far more alarming. The government 
 of the country, its financial condition and commercial prosperity, 
 were groaning under the almost despotic control of a vast and cor- 
 rupt — an insolent and domineering — moneyed monopoly ; that Bank 
 of the United States, which now lies buried in an infamous grave, 
 but which then stalked boldly into our national halls of legislation, 
 and approached the conductors of the public press, offering its 
 golden bribes as openly as if venality were a merit, and corruption 
 were a virtue. There was no living man save Andrew Jackson, 
 who could successfully encounter this monstrous corporation — resist 
 its encroachments — defy its power — expose its corruptions— and 
 prostrate its pride. And it required all his unrivalled popularity- 
 all his wonderful power of inspiring the hearts of other men with his 
 own opinions and feelings — all his amazing inflexibility of will— 
 and all his indomitable courage, both physical and moral — to com- 
 mence, conduct, and conclude, that battle of the giants — the war 
 betwixt the p eople and the bank. Let us thank God, that such a 
 man was found to deliver his country from the curse of that corrr.pt 
 institution ! Let us thank God, that in stormiest and most perilous 
 times, when the political heavens are darkened, and the earth is 
 shaken, and the elements are thrown into wild uproar, and the 
 hearts of most men fail them by reason of fear, He doth, in his 
 Providence, raise up and send amongst us, those dauntless spirits, 
 which can 
 
 " Ride on the whirlwind, and direct the storm." 
 
 At the period of Jackson's election, the legislation of this coun- 
 try had broken over, and wandered wide from the true republican 
 channels. A high protective tariff then inflicted intolerable 
 burdens upon the many, for the exclusive benefit of a small and 
 favoured class. In order to sustain this tariff by a seeming public 
 necessity, the public liabilities were every year increased by some 
 new scheme of expense, under the name of internal improvement ; 
 and thus millions of money were wasted, on land and on sea, that 
 the revenues of the country, so needlessly and so unjustly levied, 
 might find an outlet, and the burdens of indirect taxation be more 
 and more firmly fastened on the reluctant shoulders of the people. 
 This double political sin, it was Jackson's high mission to abolish. 
 He paid off every dollar of the national debt. He put an end to 
 that delusive system of extravagance which was thus eating out the 
 substance of the citizens. He reduced the revenue of the country, 
 by a reduction of the tariff to the exact standard of the public ne- 
 cessity. His first step was to impose the restraint of the executive 
 
BOLLES'S EULOGY. 233 
 
 veto upon every extravagant or unconstitutional appropriation, and 
 thus, almost for the first time, gave a living force and virtue to that 
 hitherto neglected part of our national constitution. 
 
 Most fortunately for our national Union, also, was such a presi- 
 dent, at that peculiar crisis, intrusted with the supreme executive 
 authority. Himself a friend to a moderate tariff, so framed as to 
 give equal protection to every form of American industry, yet re- 
 solved that the revenues of the government should be graduated by 
 its wants — himself an earnest defender of the rights of the several 
 states — opposed to a wide and lax interpretation of the general 
 constitution, yet devoted, heart and soul, to the Union — he, of all 
 men, was the appropriate and fitly chosen agent of the people, at 
 that great epoch, when his own native state, her patience exhaust- 
 ed by that legislation of the general government which she deemed 
 destructive alike of her interests and of her rights, resolved to assert 
 her individual sovereignty and cast off her allegiance to the Union. 
 
 Then came the darkest hour in the history of our government — 
 black as midnight — to be followed, however, by as bright a dawn 
 as that which ushered in the birthday of our national freedom. 
 
 Who has forgotten that eventful crisis ? Who has forgotten that 
 immortal proclamation? The declaration of our independence has 
 consecrated the name of its author. The proclamation of Presi- 
 dent Jackson shall, in like manner, embalm his name in the affec- 
 tions of his countrymen ! Its spirit-stirring appeals, its impassioned 
 eloquence, its unanswerable logic, its words of solemn warning, 
 smote upon the_ national heart as the rod of Moses upon the rock 
 in the wilderness, and the deep fountains of universal feeling were 
 broken up ; and amidst the wide rushing tide of patriotism, the 
 dreary waste of intestine discord and domestic war was swallowed 
 up for ever. 
 
 The eight years of Jackson's administration, full of stirring events 
 and strong political excitements, have not yet passed so far from 
 our sight as to have allowed all the passions and prejudices of that 
 period to subside and die away ;. but we rejoice in the conviction 
 that all men, of all parties, are now found ready and willing to 
 admit his patriotism, and to admire that heroic energy with which 
 he dedicated himself and all his powers to what he believed the 
 interests of our common country. 
 
 Let us now turn with him from the turbulent career of public 
 action, and behold him once more established in the seclusion of 
 the Hermitage. Old age and years of hardship have written their 
 rough history upon that bending form and furrowed countenance. 
 He rejoices to lay down the burden of both office and honour. The 
 cherished wife of his affections is no more ; and now his longest 
 and most frequent pilgrimage is to her tomb, in which he hopes 
 ere long to lie down by her side. An orphan himself, he has no 
 20* 
 
234 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 children, save such as his warm heart has adopted. The Hermi- 
 tage is, indeed, filled with devoted friends, and is resorted to by 
 almost worshipping crowds. The regard of an admiring world still 
 follows him in his retirement. His eye is still open and intent to 
 discern the progress of events, and the growing greatness of his 
 country. His heart still throbs with its accustomed pulse of patri- 
 otism, and with his youthful love of freedom. Every foot of our 
 national domain, every point of our national honour, every star and 
 stripe in our country's flag, is as dear to his heart as when, in the ar- 
 dour of young blood, he devoted himself to the cause of America. 
 
 But, nevertheless, his few remaining years are 3'ears of quiet 
 meditation and communion with his God. Another world is dawn- 
 ing on his vision. His heart is holding converse, with spiritual 
 truth. The Infinite, with its endless being, its illimitable extent, 
 its immeasureable power — that grand idea, before which the soul 
 of the greatest stands reverent and humble — that Infinite, and he, 
 the greatest of living men, are now face to face ; and Jackson bows 
 down before the presence of his God, as a little child in his docility 
 and meekness — as a little child in his love of faith. 
 
 In his sick room, behold his constant companion in that well- 
 thumbed Bible ! From his evening solitude, hearken to the accents 
 of his prayer! Around his dying pillow, give ear to those words 
 of comfort and those ejaculations of Christian joy and hope that 
 fall from his venerable lips. " Do not weep." said he to those who 
 beheld his bodily anguish, " my sufferings are less than those of 
 Christ upon the cross!" 
 
 The hero's last hour has come, in the stillness of the Sabbath, in 
 the sweetness of early summer, in the presence of all who are 
 dearest to his affectionate heart. He speaks to them of the good- 
 ness and glory of God ; of the love and atonement of Jesus ; of the 
 joys of heaven. And now, as his family cluster around him, and 
 the last breath flutters upon his lips, he exclaims, "Dear children, 
 servants, and friends, I trust to meet you all in heaven, both white 
 and black — all, both white and black;" ;ind with this affectionate 
 farewell, the spirit of him, "the foremost man of all this world," 
 escapes to immortality ! 
 
 "Socrates died like a philosopher;" but it was the happier lot 
 of Jackson to die like a Christian. Fit consummation to a life like 
 his. Devoted for nearly eighty years to the cause of the republic, 
 his dying breath bears witness to the truth of that religion on which 
 alone the republic can safely found its institutions. His life is its 
 own best monument — his own best eulogy. It sprang from the dark 
 valley of obscurity, like the peaks of his favourite Alleghanies from 
 the valleys of the west, into the sight and the admiration of a world 
 — rough, rugged, and sublime, piercing through every cloud, it tow- 
 ered aloft till its summit was bathed in the light of Heaven. 
 
EULOGY 
 
 DELIVERED AT WI LKESBARRE, PA, JULY 4, 1845, 
 
 BY THE 
 
 Hon. HENDRICK B. WRIGHT. 
 
 Fellow Citizens : — The Roman triumvir said in Caesar's funeral 
 " that he came to bury Caesar, not to praise him." He knew too 
 well that the trophies, recent in the recollection of the people, 
 which graced the car of the mighty conqueror, in the triumphal 
 entry into the gates of the imperial city, required at his hands no 
 eulogy. The history of the great warrior was fully recorded on 
 the battle fields of the whole Roman empire. The subjugated 
 nations which acknowledged the Roman empire, and which, by the 
 law of arms, were made tributary to it, were matters familiar to 
 the lowest classes of citizens. The meanest scavenger who swept 
 the streets of Rome, knew " Great Caesar," and could recount his 
 history — and when Mark Antony desired to obtain the public ear, 
 to have commenced by telling the people that he was going to 
 speak in praise of him, while they were as well acquainted with 
 the subject as the speaker himself, would have been but poorly 
 calculated to command their attention. He therefore said, " He 
 came to bury Caesar." He came to bestow the rights of sepulture — 
 to tender the last offices to the distinguished and illustrious dead. 
 
 On this day, and in the hearing of this audience, no finesse is 
 required on my part, in reference to the subject and the occasion 
 that have called us together, to obtain from you a patient and 
 attentive hearing. It is true, we come to bury the illustrious 
 dead ; but also to speak of his many virtues — his valour, and his 
 love of country. 
 
 I see collected before me, old age, supported by the tottering staff; 
 vigorous and matured manhood ; and buoyant and elastic youth ; 
 men who belong to the two great political parties of the land, are 
 here ; but they come here under no flags and banners of partisan 
 devices. A call has summoned us togetber ; 'tis the funeral dirge, 
 which announces to us that one of the nation's great men has gone 
 
 (235) 
 
236 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 to the receptacle of the dead. That spot, sacred (at least), because 
 it terminates the warm and excited feelings of political strife ; 
 sacred, because the tenant in his winding sheet is relieved from the 
 throes which too frequently lacerate the bleeding heart by the ob- 
 stacles which are reared up by emulous ambition ! Sacred, because, 
 however much the living man may be censured and condemned, 
 who has the temerity to assail the dead? 
 
 We come here, on this, our nation's birth-day, as the children 
 of one parental government ;. with one mind, and one object only ; 
 sons of the same soil ; supporters of the same republican liberty, and 
 endowed with the same equal and unalienable rights, to show our 
 respect, and bear honourable testimonial to the memory of a man, 
 who, through all the vicissitudes of an eventful life, has ever been 
 found, in peace or war, between, his enemies and the altar of our 
 common country. 
 
 With such opinions, then, on the part of those whom it is my 
 pleasure to address, I can assure you in all sincerity, I feel an honest 
 pride and gratification, of which the power of speecn can convey 
 but a vague and indefinite notion. It presents a grand moral and 
 instructive spectacle, that, although the nation is bereaved of one 
 of its brightest ornaments, there is a consolation foreign to most 
 governments on the globe, that the individual sympathies of that 
 nation are most sensibly and keenly manifested. It is alike honour- 
 able to the American heart and American character. It affords 
 most ample evidence that the republican simplicity of our constitu- 
 tion and laws, operate upon the finest feelings of the heart, and 
 produce a generosity that is strictly national in its complexion, and 
 elsewhere unknown. 
 
 It is a matter of profound congratulation, and of the deepest mo- 
 ment to our country, that among all the distinguished generals and 
 statesmen who, from time to time, have been invested with com- 
 mand in the field, or at the head of the government in its civil re- 
 gulations, with but one or two exceptions, they have proved true 
 to the great cause of republican freedom, and civil and religious 
 liberty. During the great struggle of the Revolution, there was 
 but one Arnold, and his fame is eternal infamy. During the late 
 war, there was but one Hull. Cowardice was the crime of this — 
 treason of that one, and as regards the national fame, or their own, 
 there is but little to choose between the two. The example of lofty 
 and sincere patriotism set by Washington, reached, the subordinate 
 as well as the ranks ; and the examples of Hancock, and Adams, 
 and Jefferson, and Franklin, and Henry, in the councils of the na- 
 tion, were of such a stamp and character, as to leave their impress 
 upon the whole American people. They lived for their country ; 
 and rather than soil the escutcheon of the nation's flag, they were 
 ready at all times to offer up their lives. 
 
EULOGY. 237 
 
 That matchless instrument which has just been repeated in your 
 hearing, shows by its language the determination of its framers, and 
 the actions of the men corresponded fully with the nature and tone 
 of the instrument itself. The pledge to the cause of their " lives, 
 their fortunes, and their sacred honours," was no idle boast — no 
 vain and unmeaning cant. 
 
 The same patriotism which kindled up the hearts of the colonists 
 in 177G, to a blaze, was equally manifest in 1812, and the sons of 
 the heroes of the former war proved most conclusively that their 
 ancestors' blood coursed through their veins. How widely different 
 has been the fate of other nations. Bonaparte was the volunteer 
 of a republic, and at the outset of his brilliant career in arms, held 
 himself out to France and the world, as an advocate of represen- 
 tative government ;. but with unlimited success, these notions, if he 
 ever seriously entertained them, vanished with the rapidity of the 
 succession of his victories, and when the government of France 
 changed rulers it was under the name of a consularship ; but for no 
 other reason than to allay the tide of the popular commotion. It 
 was in fact a dynasty — and a little more assurance, and the accu- 
 mulation of a little more power, made the consul an emperor. 
 Simon Bolivar, more recently, was dignified by the high-sounding 
 title of Liberator, but who, after the sceptre of power passed into 
 his hands, heard of his republican principles or acts'? Till power 
 was obtained he was for a free government — when obtained he be- 
 came a tyrant. The same results have almost uniformly attended 
 the efforts of every people to become free but our own. And do 
 I assume too much in imputing the cause, in our case, to the stern 
 virtues of the men who commanded our armies and achieved our 
 victories'? They were honest. Their subsequent conduct corres- 
 ponded with their professions. Republicans at the commencement 
 — republicans at the end ! In power, and out of it the same stern 
 and unbending patriots. 
 
 Probably among them all, this spirit was not more manifest than 
 in the exalted character whose death has brought us together on 
 this occasion. Because, however much the nation may be divided 
 as to some of the leading measures of his administration, and the 
 effect they are to produce hereafter — there is but one opinion as to 
 his long and successful career as a soldier. And that opinion is re- 
 corded deep and lasting on the hearts of his grateful countrymen 
 — an opinion that finds a ready response on every tongue — that the 
 laurels that covered the brow of the hero, and which will grow 
 green for ever — were the honest reward of true merit, and about 
 which there is no dispute. This feature in the life of Andrew 
 Jackson, together with all others, has now become a part, and an 
 important part of the history of the age in which he lived — and 
 let me say, there are few indeed, during that time, who will occu- 
 
238 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 py so full a page. Nor will I confine the assertion I have made to 
 the narrow limits of the lines which designate the width and 
 breadth of the United States of America — no indeed. His fame 
 as a great captain, and most accomplished and brave soldier has ex- 
 tended " to the utmost limits of the civilized world." And by 
 common consent, in all nations, professing civilization, the name 
 of Andrew Jackson will be classed among the most distinguished 
 generals of ancient or modern history. 
 
 The space of time for an exercise, like the present, will not al- 
 low me to go into detail. A glance at the most distinguished events 
 in the life of this individual must answer the occasion. Andrew 
 Jackson was born on the 15th of March, 1767, in what was then 
 the colony of South Carolina, whither his father, an emigrant from 
 Ireland, had settled some years anterior to that date. Thrown 
 into life at a time when the long and angry disputes about taxation 
 and the right of representation, between the colonies and the mo- 
 ther country were fast approaching a crisis by an appeal to arms — 
 and at a time, too, when the aggressions of Great Britain were the 
 subject and theme of conversation in all circles and upon all occa- 
 sions, it is not a matter of surprise that his youthful mind was 
 strongly operated upon by those aggressions. 
 
 At the age of fourteen, we find the youthful soldier armed, and 
 fighting for his country. The school-books give place to the mus- 
 ket and bayonet ; and the retirement of domestic life to the bustle 
 and turmoil of the camp. Taken a prisoner of war, and treated 
 with all the rigour and harshness which signalized the Southern 
 campaign, over any other portion of the country, it helped to ma- 
 ture and cherish those feelings of a strong love of country, which 
 his whole life exhibited in after times, as well as a most inveterate 
 dislike of his country's foes. All are familiar with the insult 
 offered him by a British officer in directing him to perform a menial 
 service, and an indignant refusal of which very nearly cost him his 
 life. His arm received the sabre which was directed at his head. 
 The same brutal treatment caused the death of his only surviving 
 brother, who was in confinement with him at the time, whose life 
 was the forfeit for refusing to discharge the mean drudgery of the 
 British camp. His elder brother having fallen in battle, Andrew 
 was the only son left of this noble and gallant family. This treat- 
 ment, and the entire destruction of his own family, created in his 
 breast a feeling of the most inveterate hostility, and his career in 
 after life, at every step, was marked by this precept of his early 
 education, toward the British government. Having gone through 
 the exciting scenes of. the Revolution, we pass from this period of 
 his history, omitting his legal education — his removal to Tennessee 
 — the several engagements with the Creeks and Seminoles — the 
 battle of the Horseshoe, and the many incidents, which the pen 
 
Wright's eulogy. 239 
 
 of tne nistonan will record in honour of the man, and come down 
 to the period of the war of 1812, to the memorable battle of New 
 Orleans, which occurred on the 8th day of January, 1815. 
 
 In some respects the achievement of the victory of New Or- 
 leans is without a parallel in the history of nations. It exhibited 
 a boldness of design and an admirable foresight as to consequences 
 and results without precedent. One of the leading and important 
 objects on the part of the British army during the late war was to 
 effect a landing of their troops and destroy our property and raze 
 our large towns and cities. Knowing well the impracticability of 
 possessing by force our territory, — plunder and the fire-brand were 
 the means adopted by the British soldiery. For this purpose a fleet 
 ascended the Potomac, and the capitol at Washington was demo- 
 lished — a landing was effected near Baltimore, and a descent made 
 upon that city for the same purpose. 
 
 General Jackson was invested with the command of the Southern 
 army, consisting of some two or three thousand men, while that of 
 the British was under the command of Sir Edward Packenham. 
 The British had made several lodgments on the coast of Florida, 
 and a short time previous to the battle of New Orleans, had occu- 
 pied the neutral town of Pensacola, and to which the Spanish go- 
 vernment had assented. Against this General Jackson remon- 
 strated to the Spanish authorities; but in vain. Seeing the neces- 
 sity of driving the enemy from the coast, he requested permission 
 from the president to attack Pensacola, which was departing from 
 its neutrality, the Spaniards permitting it to be the head-quarters 
 of the enemy. This permission was not, however, granted, and 
 he determined to advance upon the town and expel the English 
 and Spanish soldiery at the point of the bayonet, which he effected 
 after a short but unavailing resistance, and in the month of No- 
 vember, 1814, he marched into Pensacola at the head of three 
 thousand troops, and planted the American standard within that 
 neutral town. In this that bold and fearless trait of his character 
 is fully exhibited. Without the consent of this government, and 
 against a principle of international law, he not only advances upon 
 neutral ground, but occupies it with his own troops, driving out 
 the enemy as well as the citizens who openly professed neutrality, 
 but who, in fact, were aiding and abetting the English cause. This 
 the commanding general knew, and therefore assumed the respon- 
 sibility of doing that which seemed to him to be of the utmost im- 
 portance, but for which he had not the authority of law. 
 
 In this act also, we find a corresponding measure in the history 
 of his great cotemporary in arms, the emperor of the French. At 
 Toulon, Napoleon Bonaparte, who was then only a lieutenant of 
 artillery, assumed the authority of acting against orders, proclaimed 
 by his superiors, and which, in his own language, had he failed, 
 
240 MONUMENT TO JACKSOxM. 
 
 " would have forfeited his head." Although General Jackson did 
 not disobey orders, as was the fact with Bonaparte, still he entered 
 a neutral town, relying on his own knowledge that Pensacola had 
 forfeited all the rights of neutrality, and in this, he risked his fame 
 and reputation, if not his life. In the two cases there is a parallel, 
 and shows that a truly great mind is not narrowed down and con- 
 fined to those limits with which the law, in all its potency, is 
 pleased to circumscribe. There are times when the necessity of the 
 crisis (and of which a commanding general should judge), sweeps 
 away the barriers which the law has established for ordinary life, as 
 though they were but cobwebs, in the place of legal fetters-, and 
 there are times, too, when the conduct of a commander could not 
 be sustained unless he violated the law. The cases of Toulon and 
 Pensacola are in point; and, although the responsibility be great, 
 still the stretch of mind, and the depth of intellect, must fathom it. 
 What, pray, would have been the condition of the city of New 
 Orleans, had not the bold and original mind of Andrew Jackson 
 declared the civil authorities usurped to the military — declared 
 martial law to be in force? Rapine and murder would have strode 
 through the streets of that fair city unmasked. The licentiousness 
 of a brutal soldiery would have been surfeited to excess, and which 
 was the daily boast and conversation within the British camp. 
 Fire and the sword would have finished the consummation of a 
 plan, at the rehearsal of the details of which, the enlightened mind 
 stands back overwhelmed, and stricken with awe ! Who, at this 
 day, will say that Andrew Jackson violated the law by his disre- 
 garding the law 1 A city, a portion, at least, of whose population, 
 was disaffected to the American cause, and who were constantly 
 throwing obstacles in the way to its defence — the legislature of 
 Louisiana in session — the commanding general makes application 
 to it to suspend the habeas corpus ; they deliberate, but they do not 
 act, and while in this state of suspense, and the momentary dangers 
 which threatened, the intrepid and brave general declares that done 
 which the civil authorities either had not the nerve to carry out, or 
 the will to execute! His troops become free from the civil process 
 — the property of the citizens at his disposal — the ground a military 
 camp, and under military law. He at once proceeds to put the 
 city and the country in a state of defence, and the result not only 
 justifies the measure, but sanctions the precedent. Here the com- 
 mander went in opposition to the law, but by doing so he saved a 
 large city ; property from plunder, virtue from beastly assault, and 
 conferred illimitable blessings upon its people; and, although a fine 
 of one thousand dollars was imposed upon him, in reference to his 
 course at New Orleans, a grateful country has refunded that sum, 
 with interest from the time it was imposed, which act, proceeding 
 from the legislative council of the land, shows how and in what 
 
241 
 
 light it was censured. That instead of being worthy of the sen- 
 tence, he was entitled to the commendation and approval of all. 
 
 But I come now to speak of the battle of New Orleans. After 
 the British forces had been expelled from Florida, the next move 
 was to be upon New Orleans. Sir Edward Packenham being fully- 
 apprised of some disaffection there ; and also knowing, that this 
 post, once obtained, he would hold in his hand the great key to the 
 whole of our western and south-western territory — and that the 
 possession of the city would be of immense importance to his army 
 and his king. 
 
 To this place, General Jackson repaired at the head of an army 
 of some two thousand men, which, on the memorable Sth, was aug- 
 mented to the number of some four thousand — while the force under 
 Sir Edward Packenham amounted to nine thousand! The whole 
 plan for the arrangement of this battle, furnishes proof of the 
 master mind of the great architect who projected it. The city 
 was put in a state of defence by fortifying the approaches to it, 
 and when he ascertained the dangers which threatened within, de- 
 clared, as I have already said — martial law — and, although there 
 had been some brushes between the contending armies, the Sth oi 
 January was the day on which the great issue was to be decided. 
 To prepare for this, entrenchments were made to secure the Ameri- 
 cans from the British fire. On the Sth, the British advanced in 
 two columns under Sir Edward Packenham, and in consequence of 
 the heavy fog at the time, they came within a short distance of the 
 American lines ; when they were discovered, " a terrible and un- 
 ceasing fire kept them back, and Packenham fell mortally wounded." 
 The British columns were again and again led up to the breastwork, 
 and as often mowed down by the constant vollies of the American 
 soldiers. Finding the charge to be against an invincible barrier, and 
 that the only result was an awful destruction of human life, they 
 fled, leaving three thousand of the flower of the British army upon 
 the field ofcarnag-e and blood. The loss of the Americans in this 
 battle was " thirteen !" 
 
 Taking into consideration the comparative strength of the two 
 armies, and the comparative loss — there is no battle on the recorded 
 page of history that will compare with this. It was this battle that 
 crowned the military career of Andrew Jackson ! It was this battle 
 that gave him a fame and reputation imperishable in all future time. 
 And now that his name and his acts have become the property of 
 his country, the voice of emulation and discord is hushed for ever 
 — that full justice will be done the man, which may have been 
 heretofore partially withheld. His conduct as a soldier on the 
 field of New Orleans, entitles him to a place in no way inferior to 
 the best general of the age. The memory of that battle will be 
 perpetual. It will live for ever — so long as the great father of 
 21 
 
242 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 waters shall continue to roll on his turbid billows to the ocean — the 
 field of New Orleans, which rests upon his banks, will be trans- 
 mitted from generation to generation — if letters are forgotten, and 
 history buried in the dark caves of oblivion, tradition will do the 
 work ; and alongside of Yorktown, and Monmouth, and Bunker 
 Hill — Waterloo, and Austerlitz, and Jena — Marathon and Thermo- 
 pylae ; it will go down to the latest posterity. In our own history, 
 it will be a memorable spot — a lasting monument to the skill and 
 bravery of the generals, who, on that day, added new honours to 
 the American cause, and a bright example for the imitation of the 
 American soldier, who, in days to come, may have occasion to draw 
 his sword in vindication of the nation's honour. 
 
 To Jackson's fame, the honour of two successful wars may be 
 added. Few, indeed, have had the same duties to perform in the 
 service of their country — and none have discharged them with 
 more personal credit to themselves and to the nation. He has 
 never had the charge of cowardice imputed to him in times of 
 highest political strife — he has never been charged with an ambition 
 which was irreconcileable with the best interests of his country. 
 Like the immortal Washington, when he had finished the work of 
 doing battle for the republic, he retired to the scenes of private 
 and "domestic life, until called on by the people to act in a more 
 exalted sphere. It has never been imputed to him, that any other 
 motive impelled him, than an honest and patriotic desire to serve 
 the sacred cause of freedom — to maintain and perpetuate those 
 principles of government, which had their origin in the dawn of 
 the Revolution. Honest, patriotic, brave— he was ever ready to 
 draw the sword from the scabbard when duty called him, and as 
 willing to return it when the day of duty was done. The fame of 
 the soldier, which, in his case, was exalted, was never used for 
 purposes of personal aggrandizement, or popular promotion. Gene- 
 rous to a fault, courteous and agreeable, he gained with the soldiery 
 an influence, which, with an evil mind, he could have converted 
 to the lasting injury of his country. He shared with them, their 
 wants and privations — was a friend — their companion — in a word, 
 their regard and affection for him were unbounded. He was the 
 idol of the camp. 
 
 Thus much of General Andrew Jackson as a soldier. Allow 
 me now to turn your attention to him as a statesman. For with 
 him the historian will have quite as much to do in this character 
 as the one which I have already dwelt upon at some length. 
 Indeed, it is a remarkable feature in the management of our go- 
 vernment, that from the very time " the experiment" was put in 
 motion — that the men who fought our battles have been the favour- 
 ites among the masses, and have almost invariably been rewarded 
 by elections to posts of honour and trust. Of the American presi- 
 
Wright's eulogy. 24-3 
 
 dents, three of them have been distinguished military men ; and 
 men, too, who seemed to have enjoyed the confidence of the peo- 
 ple to a greater extent than the others. Washington was unani- 
 mously elected by the people ; ;md subsequently Jackson and Har- 
 rison by immense majorities. If a digression be pardonable, permit 
 me to say, that under our system, where the will of the majority is 
 the fundamental law, I have seldom thought, if in fact ever, that 
 the popular voice, when fairly ascertained, was incorrect. The 
 masses of the people are not generally excitable, they take time for 
 consideration and reflection, and under our laws of education, the 
 result the public mind arrives at is very generally, if not always, 
 correct. Where the people have the power they seldom fail to re- 
 ward the faithful public servant. And this very circumstance is 
 an inducement that presents itself to the mind of the youth of our 
 country — and these examples to which I have already referred, 
 prove the position, that republics are not ungrateful. There may, 
 no doubt, be individual cases, where the people have been deceived. 
 There are demagogues now, and there will be, so long as there is 
 vitality in men or governments. But when they are found out, 
 you have never failed to notice that they are scouted out of the 
 paths of honest men, and become the subject of manly contempt 
 and popular abhorrence. Even among the chosen twelve, there 
 was one Judas, who was ever making protestations of friendship, 
 and desiring, by his fawning acts and conduct, to be considered as 
 the chief of apostles. So it is now in the civil and political rela- 
 tions of men. 
 
 The career of Andrew Jackson, in a civil capacity, has been one 
 of remarkable success, and although some of his measures, while 
 president of the United States, have been and will continue to be 
 subjects of political difference among party men ; still, I think all, 
 at this day, will ascribe honesty of purpose, and a desire on his part 
 to serve the country, in what he regarded the most wholesome mea- 
 sures, however much they may differ in opinion with those who 
 profess to be governed by the same political creed. And a great 
 proportion of the leading and prominent points of his administra- 
 tion met the hearty approval and concurrence of the whole Ameri- 
 can people. 
 
 Ordinarily, the hard and severe school of the soldier is not the 
 proper place to learn the principles, as well as manners, that make 
 the best qualifications for the statesman. There usually is a severi- 
 ty of discipline, and an impetuosity of character imparted in the 
 bold and rugged manoeuvres of war, which are not among the re- 
 commendations that make up the accomplished civilian. There is, 
 too, contracted, from long and continued command, a tendency to 
 arrogance, and a self-esteem and personal importance that are also out 
 of place in the cabinet of state. From all of these the good sense 
 
o 
 
 44 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 and strong mind of Andrew Jackson entirely relieved him. In the 
 discharge of his duties he was not only agreeable, but remarkably 
 complaisant. He was bold and original in his designs, but not ar- 
 rogant ; and although decided and firm, he proved that his premises 
 were the result of reason and thought, and not of arbitrary will 
 and perverseness. Strong and fervent attachment to his friends, 
 sometimes brought down upon him the censure of those who were 
 less fortunate. But if there be any trait in the human character 
 which recommends itself as the peculiar object of praise and com- 
 mendation, it is the conduct of the man who knows how to appre- 
 ciate an invaluable friend, and knowing so, has the magnanimity to 
 acknowledge it in a suitable and appropriate way. The whole 
 course of the life of Andrew Jackson is a rife example and a bold 
 and prominent testimony to the fact that his friendship was endu- 
 ring, and that no man ever had cause to censure him even of for- 
 getfulness, who had enjoyed his confidence and good opinion. 
 With the man possessing such a trait of character you can bury up 
 an ocean of faults. It is this that ennobles the human mind, and 
 a desertion of it sinks the possessor to the creature whose only es- 
 timate of personal worth is added up and multiplied into pounds, 
 shillings and pence! Borne into power by the strong feelings and 
 the affections of the people, the millions who live by dint of hard 
 labour and continual industry — the great aim and object of the pre- 
 sident seemed to be to devise the best means during his administra- 
 tion to serve the people — emphatically the people ; to pursue that 
 course of policy which would confer the "greatest good upon the 
 greatest number ;." and no president ever seemed to have so deep at 
 heart the object of providing for the masses by proper and judicious 
 legislation to the same extent. This spirit runs through all his 
 messages and state-papers, and with him it was a theme of constant 
 remark. Neither was it the offspring of a mean and selfish design. 
 
 Accustomed to share the coarse food with the commonest soldier, 
 and lay side by side with him in the tempest and the storm, he not 
 only learned to feel for men in the lower walks of life, but to enter 
 most keenly into their wants, and devise means for their protection 
 and happiness. Andrew Jackson was the friend of the poor man. 
 He was so from the generous impulse of his heart, not from a sinis- 
 ter design, and out of this feeling mainly, he advanced those no- 
 tions with regard to a solid currency which have for a series of 
 years agitated the country. 
 
 As this, however, is neither the time nor the place to speak of 
 the policy of this and other prominent measures, about which there 
 may be, and is a difference of opinion, my audience will excuse 
 me in alluding to them for the purpose of showing the design with 
 which their author and originator brought them forward. Through 
 honesty of purpose none, I think, will deny. But while here and 
 
Wright's eulogy. 245 
 
 there may be a state measure about which political men may cavil, 
 let me refer to the question of French indemnity, and I hazard the 
 assertion, that from the pine clad hills of Maine, to the sands and 
 everglades of sun-burned Florida, there is but one opinion in the 
 public mind. All must agree in sentiment, that the tone of the 
 president on this occasion was that of a high and lofty statesman. 
 The stern and decided manner of the executive silenced opposition, 
 and a word brought to final conclusion a subject, in which half of 
 the nation saw the spark of war. 
 
 With him there was no temporising policy ; prompt, efficient, 
 and decided, he first thoroughly examined, and then acted with 
 that peculiar firmness which ever characterized the man on the 
 field amidst the din of arms and the deadly embrace of foes, or in 
 the council hall of his country. 
 
 His views, too, on the great question of the construction of the 
 constitution, were the result of an anxious desire to protect the 
 states in their sovereign capacity, and prevent the encroachment of 
 the general government, and in this, secure individual rights and 
 privileges. A desire that sought out the means of individual good, 
 and the welfare of the states. This manifestation, openly and 
 privately exhibited to serve the great cause of popular government, 
 endeared the man as much to the masses, as driving the foot of in- 
 vasion from our soil ; and now that the head of the hero and states- 
 man is laid low, I feel as though, having undertaken to speak his 
 eulogy, I would be derelict in my duty to the dead, as well as 
 the living, were I not to speak openly, and in defence of the cha- 
 racter of this man, who has commanded the public eye, and public 
 attention, for more than half a century. It is seldom, indeed, the 
 country goes into mourning at the decease of her sons. Now and 
 then, the death of a distinguished and illustrious man produces a 
 universal shock, and reaches the hearts of the whole people, but 
 it is indeed seldom. There are few men, who, by their public 
 acts and private virtues, can become familiar to twenty millions 
 of inhabitants. Within the limits of our own knowledge, few and 
 far between, have been the occasions that have thrown the black 
 pall of grief over the whole land. In the enumeration of the 
 deaths of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, La Fayette, Harrison, and 
 Jackson, we have them all. All told in this brief catalogue. 
 The feeling of deep regret, and the public sorrow in each case, 
 showed that these patriots had a deep hold on the affections not 
 only of the American people, but through the civilized world, 
 wherever a bosom throbbed for universal freedom. What a proud 
 and enviable distinction ! What a rich and glorious renown ! The 
 lives of these glorious men have been the theme of history, and 
 the inspiration of song, the models after which the most profound 
 statesmen of Europe have copied, and copied largely. Think you 
 21* 
 
246 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 not that the most humble devotee at liberty's shrine in the isles of 
 Greece, down-trodden, forsaken, obliterated Poland, or the Alpine 
 hills of frozen Switzerland, has not heard of the acts and deeds of 
 these Anglo-Americans — has not studied their creed with the same 
 devotion he did the book of his religion ! 
 
 Nor has their fame been confined to the pale of civilized life — ■ 
 it has entered the tents of savage and barbarous hordes: it has rung 
 in the ear of the swarth}' Moor, the black and ill-favoured African, 
 and the despised and beastly inhabitant of the South Sea Islands. 
 To their fame, it is not in the power of man, civilized or barbarous, 
 to set up a barrier ; it pervades the space of " the great globe 
 itself," and is eternal as the vast and heaving ocean! 
 
 But the history of Andrew Jackson establishes two points beyond 
 disputation. The first, that true merit, sooner or later, meets a 
 suitable reward — the second, that the oft-repeated charge that re- 
 publics do not reward men who have served their country faithfully, 
 is an idle and empty allegation, meaning nothing. 
 
 We all know the fact that the distinguished individuals I have 
 named, enjoyed the principal posts of honour and trust in the Union, 
 and that they have been the unsought and unsolicited offering of a 
 grateful people. Their services in the cabinet and in the field, 
 have, time and time again, been rewarded by all those tokens of the 
 popular will, which could satisfy the largest and greatest ambition. 
 It was the fortune of Jackson to go through all the inferior 
 grades in the councils of state, to the exalted post of president of 
 the Union — and it was all gratuitous — conferred upon the man be- 
 cause of his merits and deserving. The duties, too, he discharged 
 with an eye single to the prosperity and happiness of the people. 
 
 Connected with his life and history, there is a moral lesson, im- 
 posing as it is grand. To the youth of the country, it is a volume 
 written in letters of gold, and establishes a precedent for imitation, 
 that is beyond price. It points to the great highway of fame and 
 distinction — it tells him that the man who honestly serves his 
 country, in whatever position it may be his fortune to be cast, will 
 as surely bring down upon him the gratitude of that country, as the 
 fulfilment of prophecy. In this land of equal rights, the humblest 
 youth, with honesty, talents, and perseverance to recommend him, 
 enjoys the same opportunities with the high-born and the wealthy, 
 for political honours. The first blow at Lexington, in the revo- 
 lutionary struggle, not only knocked to atoms the bonds and fetters 
 of Great Britain, but also all the orders and titles of nobility — 
 levelled the political condition of the American colonies to a com- 
 mon standard, and made merit, in the place of hereditary fortune, 
 the republican test. Who would have even conjectured, at that 
 early day, that a young man of the tender age of fourteen years, a 
 captive in the British camp, but who had the courage and bravery, 
 
Wright's eulogy. 247 
 
 unarmed, to face the same weapon which had already drank the 
 blood of an only brother, rather than stoop to the menial service of 
 becoming the boot-black of an English officer — would be at the 
 head of the grandest government on the face of the earth ? An 
 orphan child, unprotected, without friends, without influence. It 
 is this trait in the features of a popular government, that truly makes 
 it the grandest in the world. In following the course of that 
 young man, we find him, when the war is over, pursuing the pro- 
 fession of law — representing his state in the nation's councils — upon 
 the bench — again, at the head of the American troops, pushing on 
 to glorious victory — and finally, the chief executive officer of the 
 United States of America. What a theme for contemplation — 
 what a subject for thought! Let the young man who is ambitious 
 for durable fame, read and reflect upon the noble example which 
 he will find in the life of Andrew Jackson. Let him believe that 
 the gigantic obstacles that lie between him and the summit of his 
 hopes and anticipations, will vanish like snow-flakes beneath the 
 rays of the sun, by labour — temperance — perseverance, and virtue. 
 
 There is no ordinary obstacle that can thwart or defeat a well- 
 directed and prudent ambition — momentary it may be, but the 
 courage and determination of the human heart are not easily foiled, 
 and when a point is fixed in the distance, it is almost invariably 
 attained. The subject of our discourse is full proof of the position, 
 and the experience of every day's life confirms it. 
 
 The American presidents were all " self-made men" — by perse- 
 verance, they were elevated to a point of political prominence, 
 which is above and beyond all others. Let the proud motto of our 
 flag be engraved upon the heart of the American youth : " Virtue, 
 Liberty, and Independence," and the perpetuity of that government, 
 which our ancestors regarded as an " experiment," will be certain. 
 And the illustrious hero of New Orleans, by his acts and deeds — 
 by his habits and conduct, has been among the foremost of those 
 who have given a character and tone to our country, that have 
 placed her high upon the great scroll of nations. Let those who 
 would share his honours, imitate his example. 
 
 But the voice of wisdom, and patriotism, and advice, from the 
 Hermitage, is hushed — hushed in the deep silence that pervades 
 the grave. That voice which was so powerful and overruling in 
 the affairs of state, has ceased, and the pulse of that heart, which 
 beat quick and strong amidst the shouts of victory on the plains of 
 Orleans, has also ceased for ever. 
 
 Full of years, full of honours, and full of gratitude to the great 
 Father of the Universe, the sage has gone to test the realities of 
 that holy religion, without which, the pomp and pageantry of this 
 world is but the dust of the balance ; which was his solace upon 
 earth, and the hope of a glorious inheritance in Heaven — 
 
248 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 "How sleep the brave who eink to rest 
 With all iheir country's wishes blest!" 
 
 The great valley of the Mississippi contains his sepulchre. That 
 vast region, destined to become the seat of populated millions, con- 
 tains his funeral pile. Think you not that the consecrated ground 
 that covers the bones of the hero will not become a modern Mecca, 
 where the foot of the pilgrim will pause on his route to his new 
 home in the far and boundless West, and his eye drop a tear upon 
 the tomb of the brave \ His warm heart will gush with sympathies 
 once kindred with the inanimate dust that lies beneath it. Vir- 
 ginia has her Mount Vernon, and her Monticello ; New England is 
 the repository of the remains of the compeers of Washington and 
 Jefferson ; Tennessee has her Hermitage! — as if the decrees of fate 
 had ordained that the ashes of the immortal founders of this giant 
 government should commingle with the soil that drank the first 
 blood of the Revolution, as well as that of our second independence. 
 Let this be the symbol of the mystic tie that shall bind us stronger 
 and stronger together in the union of our confederation. That the 
 wayward, the weak, the vacillating, in whichever part of the land 
 he shall be, may be brought to a sense of duty to the cause of 
 popular right, by casting his eye over the registered marble that 
 covers the last relics of the mighty dead. Think ye that the iron 
 nerve of treason could remain unsubdued at the base of the mauso- 
 leum of Washington, or Adams, or Jefferson, or Jackson 1 Nay ! 
 at such a spectacle, if there be a second Arnold, his brain would 
 reel to and fro, as did that of the Babylonian monarch at the feast 
 when the solitary finger upon the wall wrote the awful characters 
 of his destiny. 
 
 We have paid this day, the last solemn rites in honourable testi- 
 mony of the distinguished man whose death brought us together. 
 To you, fellow-citizens, who have joined in the exercises of this 
 occasion, allow me, if it be not arrogance, to thank you in the 
 name of the friends of the departed hero and statesman — in the 
 name of the people of the Union — and in the name of every human 
 creature whose heart throbs for universal freedom throughout the 
 civilized world. 
 
EULOGY 
 
 DELIVERED AT RICHMOND, VA, JUNE 28, 1845, 
 
 BY 
 
 ANDREW STEVENSON, Esq. 
 
 To consecrate the memory of illustrious men — to record their 
 actions and celebrate their praise, has been the laudable usage of 
 all ages, and the grateful duty of every people. 
 
 The rudest nations have thus dispensed the rewards and motives 
 of virtue, whilst the arts and sciences of polished society have 
 contributed their noblest efforts to this, their best and highest appli- 
 cation. 
 
 Exalted virtue and public services emphatically demand the con- 
 fidence and gratitude of freemen. It is this which not only infuses 
 into free government its public spirit, but cherishes emulation and 
 exalts patriotism. To great abilities, it is an incentive, and brings 
 them into action ; to the good and useful, in whatever degree, it 
 intimates and yields encouragement ! Hence, that strong desire, 
 which is inseparable from our nature, to live after death: to em- 
 body our names in the annals of our country, and descend to pos- 
 terity with the admiration of the wise and the blessings of the 
 virtuous. And it is this love of fame, when subordinate to the 
 general good of mankind, that is inseparable from those who are 
 truly great ! Singularly impressive in this respect were some of 
 the customs of the most highly improved nations of antiquity. 
 
 The Egyptian*, besides celebrating the names and actions of 
 their great and good men, embalmed their bodies, that they might 
 long be kept before the public view as examples of virtue, and 
 though dead, yet speaking. If there were, then, no other reasons 
 for honouring the dead, these would be more than sufficient. 
 
 But there is another obligation of a still higher moment. Great 
 virtues, like great men, are the offspring of great occasions; and 
 the doctrines of our holy religion teach, that eminently great men 
 are qualified for work, by an overruling and wise Providence — and 
 that, in honouring them, we honour Him! 
 
 (249) 
 
250 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 Influenced by these sentiments and those usages, rendered holy 
 by the best feelings of our nature, we have assembled this day to 
 perform one of the highest and most solemn duties which the living 
 owe to the dead ! And can there, under Heaven, be a more inte- 
 resting spectacle, or one more deeply touching to the human heart, 
 than that of a whole nation of freemen rising up as one man, and 
 with one mind, to do honour to the memory of an illustrious and 
 beloved fellow-citizen, by public demonstrations of sorrow and so- 
 lemn acts of devotion to God ! This crowded and solemn assem- 
 bly ; these banners which surround this sacred desk ;* the gloom 
 which has overspread our whole country, like a visitation of dark- 
 ness, and struck a pang into the bosom of every American patriot, 
 proclaim an event — a grief — of no ordinary character. They an- 
 nounce to us, that the aged and venerable patriot of the Hermitage, 
 has at last gone down to the tomb, in the ripeness of age, crowned 
 with the honours and loaded with the benedictions of a beloved 
 country ! They announce to us the solemn truth, that America 
 has lost its greatest benefactor and friend ; earth one of its noblest 
 spirits ; and the world one of its greatest men ! 
 
 In coming to do honour to such a man; one who, in the lan- 
 guage of our own Jefferson, " had filled the measure of his coun- 
 try's glory," let us show that we know the difference between the 
 ostentatious pomp and mockery of grief, and that ardent and spon- 
 taneous affection with which a free and grateful people can cherish 
 and honour the memory of an illustrious patriot : let us come to it 
 with those feelings of gratitude and admiration which belong to the 
 character of American freemen, and which are now poured out in 
 every corner of our land ! Let us do it, moreover, uninfluenced 
 by party or political feeling. Whatever the spirit of party may 
 be in the ardour of our political contests, here it should not enter! 
 Although, in life, it spares neither elevation nor humility, but goes 
 forth regardless of everything but its own gratification, high-minded 
 and liberal men will not consent that it shall poison all the charities 
 of social life, much less invade the sanctity of the tomb! 
 
 Let us not suffer the week-day paltriness of life to profane the 
 sacredness of this occasion, or chill its solemnities. Let it not be 
 said, that we refused to lay upon the altar of our country, and on 
 the graves of its heroes and patriots, our party bickerings and strifes. 
 
 Who is there that will withhold from the patriot the gratitude 
 due from the patriot's heart ? What free and proud Virginian — 
 what generous American is here, who, like the Carthaginian of 
 old, is prepared, not only to bring his enmities and his children to 
 the altar of his country, but to the very graves of its benefactors, 
 and there swear the oath of undying hate ? None ! — I trust, none ! 
 
 * Mr. S. spoke from the pulpit of the Old Baptist Church. 
 
Stevenson's eulogy. 251 
 
 Charity to ourselves, gratitude to the illustrious dead, and love 
 of country — these, these are the feelings which belong to this oc- 
 casion. 
 
 And you, too, my fair and beloved countrywomen, whose first 
 honour is in the gentleness of your nature, will you not unite your 
 sympathies and tears over the grave of that man, who, above all 
 others, was the most devoted friend and admirer, might I not say 
 romantic, that woman ever had ? 
 
 Who so prompt to defend and protect her rights, or guard her 
 from injury and insult ! 
 
 Who ever cherished or exalted more the purity of the domestic 
 and social virtues, so infinitely more important to human happiness 
 than all others ? Whose valour was it that protected our mothers, 
 and wives, and daughters from the savage tomahawk, and a licen- 
 tious soldiery, and one of our finest cities, with its " Beauty and 
 booty," from ruthless invaders? 
 
 Whose, but Andrew Jackson's? 
 
 And will you not act with the firmness which becomes the wives 
 and daughters of freemen, and by your example invigorate the 
 spirit of patriotism in your countrymen ? From the spirit which 
 pervades this assembly, I anticipate your answer. 
 
 Come, then, and mingle your sympathies with those of your 
 country, and pour out your tears over the grave of this great and 
 good man. 
 
 And here in this temple, dedicated to the living God — here, over 
 the ashes of an illustrious and beloved patriot, I invoke the spirit 
 of peace and patriotism to shed around its holy calm, refreshing 
 alike to the feelings and the intellect. 
 
 In consenting to become your organ on this occasion, I am not 
 only sensible of the difficulty and delicacy of the undertaking, but 
 I feel that your too partial choice has devolved on me the perform- 
 ance of a duty, to which powers, much higher than any I possess, 
 would alone be equal. 
 
 For, if it be true, that next to the performance of great actions, 
 is the difficulty of representing them, who shall attempt to deline- 
 ate justly the character of a man that was the type of everything 
 chivalrous in valour, generous in honour, and pure in patriotism, 
 or, in what language, tell the story of that eventful life, whose 
 every action was worthy of praise 1 
 
 To confer the just meed of eulogy on a character so remarkable 
 — to entwine the blended glories of the hero and statesman, and 
 with them to mingle the milder radiance of religion and morality, 
 would seem, indeed, to require little less than an inspiration, not 
 only of the feelings and sentiments which pervade the hearts of 
 millions of freemen throughout our whole country, but of those 
 
252 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 opinions which his great virtues and character have so strongly and 
 deeply impressed upon the world : 
 
 Of legislators, in whose labours and honours he was associated 
 by all that was useful and dignified : 
 
 Of armies, to whom he was endeared by every obligation of gra- 
 titude and glory : 
 
 Of a people, by whom he was regarded as their protector and 
 benefactor : 
 
 Of ministers of our holy religion, by whom he was beloved and 
 admired : 
 
 Of enemies in war, by whom he was alike dreaded and revered : 
 
 And of the wise, and just, and generous of all nations, of whom 
 he was an ornament and example. 
 
 This is indeed a high duty, and I would to God, it could have 
 passed into other hands, more worthy and competent to do it justice. 
 But you have determined otherwise, and in yielding to your wishes, 
 as I readily do, I feel that I am but performing a sacred duty ; one 
 that I owe to you ; to the mrmory of the illustrious man whose 
 death we commemorate, and to myself. And, although I know 
 that private friendships are not fit topics for such occasions, yet it 
 would be difficult, standing in the relations that I did for so many 
 years, to this great man, and bound to him by so many ties, not to 
 be allowed to mix up with higher motives, those of a more humble 
 and individual character. The incense of public praise will not 
 ascend with the less grateful odour, for being mingled with the 
 aspirations of individual gratitude. 
 
 The suffrages, perhaps the prejudices of mankind, have concurred, 
 with what propriety,! shall not stop to inquire, in assigning to the 
 profession of arms, the first station in the ranks of glory. On this 
 occasion, the decision can be of no importance. He, whose me- 
 mory we now honour, was alike pre-eminent in peace and war; in 
 the cabinet and the field ; and the olive and the laurel have equally 
 contributed their honours, to form the chaplet of his great renown. 
 It is, therefore, only in the order of his distinguished services, that 
 I shall first ask your attention to his military career, noticing, how- 
 ever, very briefly, before I do so, some circumstances connected 
 with the history of his early life. 
 
 The birth, parentage, and early portions of General Jackson's 
 life, belong to history. We are here to commemorate the character 
 of the hero, statesman, and patriot. I shall say nothing, therefore, 
 of his ancestors. Virtue and greatness have no need of birth. 
 Born a simple citizen, of poor, but respectable parents, he became 
 great by no other means than the energy of his own character, and 
 being, as he seems to have been, the favourite of nature and Hea- 
 ven ! Had he been born to wealth and influence, he might probably 
 have lived and died, an obscure and ordinary man ! 
 
Stevenson's eulogy. 253 
 
 Severe discipline and poverty, inured him, in early life, to great 
 hardship and industry ; and it has been justly said of him, that he 
 seems to have been an orphan from the plough to the presidency. 
 He must, therefore, be regarded as the architect of his own fame 
 and fortunes ! Although too young to have taken any distinguished 
 part in lighting up the beacon fires of our glorious Revolution, or 
 unfurling the banner of liberty with our revolutionary heroes and 
 patriots, the close of that memorable struggle found him, though a 
 boy of only fourteen, in arms in the corps of the gallant Davie, 
 and soon afterwards, with a brother, a prisoner in Camden ; where 
 he underwent severe hardships and suffering, and was finally, at the 
 intercession of his mother, liberated by an exchange of prisoners. 
 
 These early scenes of our Revolution, were not lost upon such a 
 mind as Jackson's. The bravery and devotion of our fathers ; their 
 stern determination to meet coming events, and vigorous prepara- 
 tion to meet them successfully : the great battles which had been 
 fought ; the services and sacrifices which had been made ; the re- 
 nowned men of those times, both in the field and the cabinet, and 
 the imperishable glory they achieved — were ever fresh in his re- 
 collection, and contributed mainly to form, in after times, the bent 
 and character of his great mind. They made an impression on him, 
 whicn ceased only with his last breath, and were the examples 
 that stimulated his patriotism, and formed his own heroic heart. 
 
 He drank, and deeply too, at the pure fountain of the Revo- 
 lution. From his boyhood, he was distinguished by many of 
 those noble traits of character, which marked his progress through 
 life. There was an openness, a simplicity, a good faith, an affection- 
 ate ardour, an elevation of soul, with an invincible physical and 
 moral courage, and boldness, and love of truth, which irresistibly 
 made way to the hearts of all who nearly approached him, and 
 rendered him the object, through life, of a zealous and enthusiastic 
 attachment almost unexampled. These qualities adhered to him 
 throughout his eventful life, and signally marked, as you will see, 
 its close. 
 
 It is said, that in his youth, he had no relish for literary and 
 scientific pursuits. This is, no doubt, true. His education was 
 certainly nothing more than that which was afforded in those days 
 to the children of the poorer classes, and was confined principally 
 to the rudiments of the English, and the lower and practical 
 branches of mathematics. Regular and classical education has been 
 thought, by some distinguished men, to be unfavourable to great 
 vigour and originality of the understanding ; and that, like civiliza- 
 tion, whilst it made society more interesting and agreeable, yet, at 
 the same time, it levelled the distinctions of nature. That whilst 
 it strengthened and assisted the feeble, it was calculated to deprive 
 the strong of their triumph, and beat down the hopes of the 
 22 
 
254 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 aspiring. Be this as it may, truth requires us to say, that the mind 
 of Andrew Jackson escaped the training and dialectics of the 
 schools, and so far, at least, as our distinguished countryman, John 
 Randolph, once said, " it had certainly fair play." 
 
 His writings were plain and pointed, made up, generally, of short 
 sentences, but characterized by admirable good sense, great clear- 
 ness and solidity, and a manly fortitude of thought, firm and un- 
 shrinking. 
 
 Without saying anything to the disparagement of scholarship or 
 science, he had no claims to the character of a scholar or man of 
 science, much less to that of an orator or rhetorician. Through 
 life, he was fond of reading history and the Bible, the latter of 
 which was his constant friend and companion. You cannot but 
 have been struck with his declaration on this subject, a few hours 
 before his death — "That the Bible was the bulwark of our free in- 
 stitutions, and the comforter of our present and future safety." 
 
 From youth to old age, he seems to have had a just estimation of 
 his own great mental powers and natural resources, and hence, 
 never felt 
 
 " How hard it was to climb 
 
 The steep, where Fame's proud temple shines afar." 
 
 Having determined to devote himself to the profession of the 
 law, he removed from South to North Carolina, and under the aus- 
 pices of Judge McCay, and Colonel Stokes, read law, and obtained 
 a license to practice ; and as a proof of the estimation in which he 
 was then held, he received, from the government of North Carolina, 
 the appointment of solicitor for the western part of that state, 
 being the present state of Tennessee. 
 
 At the age of twenty-two, General Jackson crossed the moun- 
 tains for the purpose of discharging the duties imposed on him by 
 this appointment, and making the West his permanent home. 
 Tennessee was of course then a wilderness, and denominated the 
 " Bloody Land." Happy was it for this patriotic state, that such 
 was the destiny of this great man ! 
 
 He resided there until she became a state, and soon ranked among 
 her most distinguished men, and filled, at different periods, most of 
 the high offices of the state, civil and military. 
 
 He was a member of her convention, and had a large share in 
 forming her constitution. He was her first representative in the 
 House of Representatives of the United States, and soon afterwards 
 became her senator in Congress. He was then translated from the 
 national councils, and became a judge of the Supreme Court of 
 Tennessee, which office he held for some years, and then resigned, 
 to devote himself to military pursuits and studies, and soon rose to 
 the rank of major-general of militia. At a later period, he was 
 again in the Senate of the United States, and only retired from it 
 
Stevenson's eulogy. 255 
 
 when nominated for the presidency. And well may the people of 
 Tennessee regard him as their especial benefactor and friend. He 
 grew up with that state from her infancy ; gloried in her expan- 
 sion and destiny ; and to her government and people devoted his 
 affections and his life. And the larger portion, both of Tennessee 
 and the adjoining country, conquered by his sword, is filled with 
 the monuments of his valour and skill. 
 
 So much for this early portion of his life : we will now pass to 
 a brief notice of his military character and services. And, in the 
 first place, I will take occasion to say, that there are few men, 
 probably, who have ever lived, more justly entitled to the charac- 
 ter of warrior — a great warrior, than Andrew Jackson. Indeed, 
 the very name of Jackson irresistibly carries to the mind of every 
 American the impression of a great military commander, and as 
 such, he must ever stand high amongst the highest on earth. Who 
 is there that ever combined in a greater degree all the distinguish- 
 ing and endearing qualities of openness of heart ; the manliness of 
 pride; the benevolence of feeling, and that chivalrous and daring 
 courage which the imagination ascribes to the perfection of a great 
 warrior, than General Jackson, excepting always the father of his 
 country'? Or who is there that has ever stamped the impression 
 of his military genius and virtues more strongly or more deeply 
 upon his own times'? 
 
 Besides, there was another quality which distinguished him as a 
 commander, over most other men; and that was, a coolness and 
 presence of mind, and entire self-possession, never so great as in 
 the midst of danger and the heat of battle, and which nothing 
 could baffle or disturb. This was strongly evinced in boyhood, and 
 marked his character through life. Among numerous occurrences 
 in illustration of this, let me mention one, which occurred during 
 the battle of New Orleans, and which I had from one of his aids, 
 who was present : A ball passed very near him, in the heat of bat- 
 tle, and he bowed his head; and said to one of the aids nearest him, 
 that it was not customary with him to salute in battle the balls en 
 passant, but as the one which had just gone by was the first Bri- 
 tish ball that he had particularly noticed, he could not do less than 
 pay his respects to it. How characteristic of the man and the hero ! 
 
 The first important services rendered by General Jackson, in a 
 military capacity, were those in our early and bloody Indian wars, 
 in the north and south-west. 
 
 Whilst Tennessee was a territory, and after her admission into 
 the Union, the frequent depredations and incursions of the neigh- 
 bouring tribes of savages, made it necessary that the whole coun- 
 try should be under arms. In all these engagements with the In- 
 dians, he was ever amongst the most active and foremost, and dis- 
 played always great energy and valour. It gave him a high 
 
256 
 
 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 military standing at that early day in Tennessee, which continued 
 steadily to increase. This state of" things, with little intermission, 
 continued down to the period of the war in 1812, with Great Bri- 
 tain. Soon after it was declared, the Creek Indians became allies 
 of the enemy ; and perpetrated some of the most signal and dread- 
 ful massacres that ever disgraced humanity. The state of Tennes- 
 see immediately called into the field some three or four thousand 
 of her militia, and placed them under the command of Jackson. 
 The first great battle was that of Talladega, in which the Creeks 
 were defeated with great slaughter: and afterwards followed, those 
 of Emuckfaw and the Horse Shoe. These victories annihilated a 
 nation that had, for twenty years and more, kept our frontiers in 
 continual dread of massacre and bloodshed, and gave peace to that 
 part of the country. They attracted the notice of the general go- 
 vernment, and General Jackson received, unsolicited, the appoint- 
 ment of a major-general in the United States service. 
 
 In appreciating the importance and difficulties of this peculiar 
 service, we must look to the circumstances under which they were 
 performed, and the hardships and trials that were to be undergone, 
 amidst the horrors of desolation and death. It was a matter of no 
 trilling importance, for a man, like Jackson, to quit his home and 
 fireside, to become an inhabitant of a wilderness, surrounded by 
 savage tribes and savage men, to prosecute, in the midst of blood 
 and carnage, a savage war. Those who have never traced the foot- 
 steps of the savage by desolation and blood ; who have never heard 
 his midnight yell and war-whoop ; whose peaceful habitations have 
 never been wrapt in flames ; who have had no parent, or wife, or 
 child, or friend, massacred or butchered under the scalping-knife 
 or tomahawk of the Indian ; who know nothing, and have felt no- 
 thing, of the dangers and horrors of a savage warfare — will never 
 be able justly to realize the perils and hardships, which this gallant 
 man and his hardy warriors had to undergo, in restoring peace to 
 the western country. In relation to the particular character and 
 importance of these services, we can form no just idea, unless by 
 comparison with those of other commanders. If we look back, 
 however, to the early history of our Indian wars, and especially 
 to the battles fought by Sullivan, after the massacre of Wyoming; 
 to those at Point Pleasant, under the gallant Lewis, who there lost 
 his life ; or to the more recent ones under General Wayne ; and 
 compare them with those of General Jackson, we may then be bet- 
 ter able to appreciate his merits and qualifications as a military 
 commander, and the services he rendered. The victory alone over 
 the Creeks has been regarded as unprecedented in Indian warfare, 
 and gave to our country that rich and valuable domain embraced 
 within the state of Alabama. These victories would alone have 
 stamped him as a great military captain. 
 
stevenson's eulogy. 257 
 
 But time presses, and I must pass on to that scene of glory which 
 awaited him, and which closed the bloody drama of our last war 
 with Great Britain. This scene was reserved for Louisiana — gal- 
 lant Louisiana ! — that state which had, but a few years before, come 
 to us by treaty and alliance, and was now to have an opportunity 
 of binding herself to us by her blood. And it was in her bosom, 
 that the gallant Jackson was to receive his great reward, and finish 
 his career of military glory. 
 
 History and experience teach, that great military powers can 
 only be displayed where great exigencies point a field on which to 
 act, and that these occasions are the means which conduct men, as 
 well as nations, to eminence and glory. 
 
 It was the battle of New Orleans, which was now to afford the 
 opportunity for the full display of all those high qualities which 
 were to stamp General Jackson as one of the first generals in the 
 world, considered either in relation to the battle itself, or the mag- 
 nitude of its consequences. 
 
 Whilst the offices of this day, I am aware, do not admit of a re- 
 cital, which would include even the leading incidents of this great 
 struggle, belonging, as they do, more properly to history and biog- 
 raphy ; yet it is needful, in order to appreciate justly the general 
 importance of the victory, but especially the vast and varied powers 
 of him who achieved it, to glance very briefly at some of the more 
 important incidents, and more especially to the situation of the 
 country, before and at the time of the battle. 
 
 It will be borne in mind, that Louisiana was yet amongst the 
 youngest of our sister states, and formed one of the remotest parts 
 of our Union. Its population was small and scattered, and it was 
 filled with a coloured population, which required a constant force to 
 prevent its becoming a domestic enemy. 
 
 Its remote situation : the pressing dangers on the whole Atlantic 
 coast, and at the seat of the national government ; together with 
 other causes, had been the means of leaving this part of the country 
 destitute of defence, and depending, in a great measure, on its own 
 resources. Although accessible by numerous inlets from the sea, 
 there were but two fortifications, ill provided, and inadequately 
 garrisoned ; and a few gun-boats, the only maritime defence. The 
 military force amounted to not more than two incomplete regiments ; 
 the militia and volunteers of the city. There were a few cannon, 
 and no arms in the arsenal. All intercourse had been cut off with 
 the sea, by a blockading squadron of the enemy, and which it was 
 known preceded the arrival of a formidable fleet, and an invading 
 army of great force. 
 
 This was the perilous and almost defenceless state of New Orleans 
 immediately previous to the battle. 
 
 It was at this juncture, that General Jackson was called to defend 
 22* 
 
259 M0NTMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 this extreme point, with a small force, unpractised in war, and with 
 few, or no other resources, than their own spirit, against a proud 
 nation, in possession of all the means, and strong with all the sinews 
 of war, and able to carry its hostilities against any part of this ex- 
 tensive country, which had drawn within its limits the greater por- 
 tion of the wealth and industry of the country. When thus sum- 
 moned by his country, he did not hesitate ! In an instant he 
 resolved ; and his resolutions, let. me tell you, were as firm as the 
 decrees of Heaven. His mind once made up, he was impatient of 
 counsel or control, as all know who knew him well — and few 
 better than myself; and when he felt conscious that he was right, 
 and must act, he would proceed, regardless of what might happen, 
 and without the slightest dread of consequences ; and never were 
 the words of the poet more applicable, than to him — 
 
 " From orbs convulsed, should all the planets fly, 
 World crush on world, and ocean mix with sky; 
 He, unconcerned, would view the falling whole, 
 And still maintain the purpose of his soul." 
 
 He repaired to New Orleans. Great as the difficulties and dan- 
 gers were that encompassed it, and which might have appalled the 
 stoutest heart, he instantly resolved to surmount them, or perish in 
 the attempt. Having taken this lofty stand, he summoned to his 
 aid his gallant countrymen, and especially those who had served 
 with him in his Indian campaigns : and ; at the first tread of danger, 
 the west, and more particularly gallant Kentucky and Tennessee, 
 poured forth their sons like legions of armed men I Tennessee 
 furnished nearly one-fourth of her physical force. Then it was that 
 confidence revived, and the srreat work of preparation began. He 
 intermitted no watch against the wakeful foe. He visited the forts, 
 organized the forces that were placed under his command, and in- 
 stilled into his soldiers confidence in themselves, and ultimate vic- 
 tory. He appealed to their passions, their prejudices, and love of 
 country. He kindled up a spirit of determined resistance — a lofty 
 and unconquerable spirit, and what was more, a contagious spirit, 
 which proved terrible to its opposers. He raised money on his 
 own credit, roused the people to a sense of their danger, and soon 
 filled the ranks of the army by volunteers, drawn from every part 
 of the western country. Like our Revolutionary patriots, he did 
 not fail to count the cost of the contest. He felt that it was no 
 common one in which he was about to engage, and no common 
 enemy to whom he was to be opposed. On the contrary, it was a 
 contest which was again to put in hazard of the sword the honour 
 of our name, and the liberties and glory of our country ! The 
 sentiment of ancient patriotism, " never to despair of the common- 
 wealth," was deeply rooted in his heart. He consequently always 
 went into battle with the spirit of victory! He never admitted 
 
Stevenson's eulogy. 259 
 
 that he could be conquered, and never was : and the lesson which 
 he invariably impressed upon his soldiers was, that the day of bat- 
 tle with him was always the day of victory. It was upon his ban- 
 ner that 
 
 " Victory, like a dazzling eagle, stood." 
 
 Besides, he was to fight under the same standard that Washington 
 had unfurled ; against the same enemy, and in the same glorious 
 cause ; with the hearts of his devoted followers, and the spirit of 
 their fathers, and how could he fail to conquer? Thus he argued, 
 and glorious was the result. I have no disposition, certainly, to 
 aggravate the dangers to which the country was exposed, or swell 
 its obligation to its defender. But the moment was one of great 
 peril and danger, and a problem of vital importance was to be 
 solved — what a militia force of freemen against regular armies, 
 could do, in defence of their altars and firesides. Besides these 
 difficulties, what was the situation of the country elsewhere I Con- 
 trast the defence of New Orleans, with the disasters of our arms, 
 at other points. There was Hull's disgraceful surrender ! The de- 
 feats and massacres of the Raisin, and Miami ! The capture of 
 Washington and the conflagration of the capitol ; and a long list 
 of depredations and pillage, on the whole of our Atlantic borders, 
 by British squadrons. Besides — what was the impression in many 
 parts of the country, as to Jackson's defeat, and the fall of New 
 Orleans? Will you pardon me for a moment, in referring to one 
 or two historical facts, to show what the fears and opinions in cer- 
 tain quarters were, at the very moment that the battle was about 
 to be fought, and when this great man was standing like a mighty 
 colossus in the midst of the sea of dangers, and with the eyes of 
 the nation looking to him for succor and safety. 
 
 In one of the gazettes of Washington, (the Republican,) of Janu- 
 ary, 1815, it was said: — "Mr. Madison has scarcely raised his 
 little finger to preserve New Orleans. The suspicion gains ground, 
 that the government is in possession of the official account of the 
 capture of that important city." Again : on the 17th of January, 
 is the following: "That Mr. Madison will find it convenient, and 
 will finally determine to abandon the state of Louisiana, we enter- 
 tain no doubt. Let the issue decide whether we do him injustice. 
 An inquiry by Congress, into the fall of New Orleans, when the 
 intelligence transpires, will fix the blame upon the executive." 
 And, again : On the 3d of February, a member of Congress said, 
 absolutely, that the government was in possession of information, 
 that the British had taken New Orleans. And, in a New York 
 gazette, of the 30th of January, after dilating on the terrible mis- 
 management of government, in permitting the troops from Ken- 
 tucky to go unarmed, it said : "It is the general opinion here, that 
 the city of New Orleans mvst fall." 
 
260 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 I allude to these things, fellow-citizens, in no unkind spirit. 
 Far from it. I do it as a part of the history of the times, to show 
 what the impressions were as to the danger and difficulty of defend- 
 ing New Orleans, and especially its defenceless state, at least in the 
 opinion of a portion of the country, and the astonishment which 
 must have ensued, when the result of the battle was announced. 
 And that such, too, was the calculation of the British government, 
 is scarcely matter for doubt. Soon after the close of the war, it 
 was stated on authority entitled to credit, and so challenged, to the 
 day after the news reached Paris of the capture and conflagration 
 of Washington, a member of the French government expressed to 
 Lord Castlereagh his doubts as to the fact, on which his lordship 
 replied : " Sire, it is true beyond doubt ; and I expect, at this mo- 
 ment, that most of the large seaport towns in America are laid in 
 ashes — that we are in possession of New Orleans, and have com- 
 mand of all the rivers of the Mississippi and the lakes — and that 
 the Americans are now little better than prisoners at large in their 
 own country !" Thus shadowing forth what might and would pro- 
 bably have been the consequences, if indeed Great Britain had 
 gained possession of New Orleans, and with it, the command and 
 keys of the Mississippi ! It was under these circumstances that 
 this great battle was fought — a battle in which, with a little more 
 than half the numbers, the Americans were victorious over more 
 than twelve thousand of the finest troops that ever appeared on our 
 shores — troops that had driven the warriors of France, the con- 
 querors of continental Europe, from the pillars of Hercules to the 
 Pyrenees. The loss on the side of the British was four generals 
 and major-generals, ten colonels, fourteen majors, thirty captains, 
 eighty to one hundred lieutenants, and some five or six thousand 
 men, killed, wounded and prisoners; while our losses were a few 
 officers and one hundred and fifty men, killed, wounded, and missing. 
 
 When we take into consideration the great disparity of loss, and 
 the inequality of force in the two armies; the difference in their 
 discipline and experience ; the hardships to which the enemy had 
 been habituated in more than one quarter of the globe — hardships 
 which our troops had for the first time to encounter and overcome ; 
 well may this battle be regarded as one of the most extraordinary 
 in ancient or modern times. In the long and devastating annals of 
 the wars that desolated all Europe, the probability is that there 
 never was a more signal victory ; and that such will be the opinion 
 of posterity, few, I presume, doubt. Indeed, in after times, it will 
 be embellished with all the fictions of poetry and romance. And 
 to whom is this victory to be ascribed? 
 
 Spirits of the gallant Coffee and Carroll ! of Villery and Labatut ! 
 what say you ? Ye brave men of the West ! who followed the 
 footsteps, and witnessed the godlike bravery and devotion of your 
 
Stevenson's eulogy. 261 
 
 illustrious chief! do not your hearts, big with mighty emotion, re- 
 sponsive say — It was Andrew Jackson 1 Yes, it was his mighty 
 spirit, and the fruitful and varied resources of his great mind, that 
 did this work of death and glory. It was in his dauntless exposure, 
 and individual prowess, in the midst and indeed in every part of 
 the battle, that we realize all that we read of in heroic stories, of 
 the warrior streaming like a meteor through the fight, and working 
 wonders by his presence and single arm. It is said of him, and 
 truly, that for five nights and days he scarcely slept, and when he 
 did, it was by snatches and in his clothes — that his horse stood 
 always near him, and equipped, even when in council. The world 
 has and will continue to regard this victory as one of those master-, 
 strokes by which great events are achieved and great characters 
 stamped, as it were, by a single blow, and which bespeak that rare 
 combination of genius to conceive, promptness to decide, and bold- 
 ness to execute; and if we admire his presence of mind and daunt- 
 less valour in the hour of danger and battle, we are not less struck 
 with his modesty and self-command amid the flush of triumph. A 
 courageous heart may and will often carry a man stoutly through 
 the battle ; but it argues some strong quality of the head to drain, 
 unmixed, the intoxicating cup of victory. 
 
 How strikingly was this illustrated in his simple and concise let- 
 ter, announcing the victory, and in answer to one of the numerous 
 addresses which were presented to him in honour of the victory: 
 — "I hope you will believe that I feel all that I should feel on this 
 occasion ; for my country's gratitude is the best reward for all the 
 soldier's toils. To the defence of New Orleans I was called by 
 duty ; and in the performance of it, my best exertions were used. 
 But to Heaven and the bravery of my soldiers, we are indebted for 
 the victory. To Heaven and them, let it be awarded." 
 
 Can there be any thing more touching and sublime 1 And surely, 
 if there be an overruling Providence, who directs the destiny of 
 men and nations, this great man seems to have been destined by 
 Heaven to tread the wine-press. Conquerors of the mighty Napo- 
 leon ! half thy laurels shall deck our warrior's tomb ! 
 
 Those who wish to see how a country can defend itself without 
 a regular army, and what sort of succour is to be obtained when 
 the hour of peril and trial comes ; they, who wish to satisfy them- 
 selves whether the bravery and patriotism of freemen can preserve 
 itself under the calamities of desolating war, should read the his- 
 tory of our last war with Great Britain, and especially the defence 
 of New Orleans, and the lessons of General Jackson's life and ex- 
 perience. Well may our country, then, proudly claim for him 
 the high character of a renowned warrior ! 
 
 His military services in Florida were also of an important cha- 
 racter. He was engaged there for some time in expelling the 
 
262 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 Birtish and savages, and punishing the perfidy and insolence of the 
 haughty Spaniard. He was afterwards made governor of the ter- 
 ritory ; secured by his energy the rights of the government and 
 people ; organized a territorial government ; and then resigned his 
 appointment : and, in his letter of resignation, with his character- 
 istic frankness and boldness, he expressed the hope that Congress 
 would not again invest any person with such large powers. He 
 was subsequently offered the appointment of minister to Mexico, 
 which he refused, and, amongst other reasons assigned for refusing, 
 was this, that he would go to no court, whose chief officer was an 
 usurper. 
 
 And now, fellow-citizens, passing from this review of the mili- 
 tary services and character of General Jackson, we come to that 
 equally important, but more delicate part of his life, connected 
 with his civil administration of the government for a period of 
 eight years. 
 
 In the presidential contest of 1824, his name for the first time 
 was presented to the American people by the legislature of his 
 own state and numerous bodies of his fellow-citizens throughout 
 the Union, as a fit person to fill the presidential chair. In that 
 election, he was, however, defeated, by the vote, not of the people, 
 but the House of Representatives, upon whom the choice was cast 
 by the constitution, under circumstances of peculiar interest and 
 excitement. Of these, I propose to say nothing here. They are 
 not subjects for this occasion. He submitted, as he should have 
 done, to the decision of the constitutional authorities of his coun- 
 try ; and his conduct was marked, on that occasion, with that pro- 
 priety and dignity so characteristic of him. 
 
 In the ensuing election, he was again taken up by his friends, and 
 then took place one of the most exciting and bitter contests known 
 in our country's history. To exhibit to you his character, I cannot 
 do it better or more strongly, than to present, very briefly, the 
 grounds upon which his claims were presented to the American 
 people for this high office. He was supported upon the ground, 
 that having been distinguished, if not for great talents, yet for use- 
 ful services in all the civil offices, under the governments both of 
 Tennessee and the United States, of councillor, legislator, senator, 
 and judge, some of which he had filled more than once, and the 
 duties of which he had discharged with ability and satisfaction to 
 those he represented, he was qualified for any office under our go- 
 vernment. That it was not probable that he could have been selected 
 to fill high offices, so various and responsible, without possessing 
 distinguished talents for civil duties ; or that he could have dis- 
 charged them satisfactorily, without considerable acquirement ; that 
 this should satisfy his country that his mind was not exclusively of 
 a military character, and that his election to the presidency would 
 
Stevenson's eulogy. 263 
 
 not therefore rest exclusively on his great military services. That, 
 like Washington, he had been a citizen soldier, and like Washing- 
 ton, was qualified for high civil command. That it was the com- 
 mand of armies, and brilliant services rendered by both, that first 
 endeared these great men to their country, and operated, doubtless, 
 with both, in recommending them to the chair of state. That, if 
 neither had been warriors, it is probable that neither would have 
 been distinguished statesmen. That General Jackson was eminently 
 qualified, by his great capacity for originating and directing mea- 
 sures, for governing men, for bringing order out of confusion, and, 
 by that prudent judgment and foresight, securing the good which 
 many too often attribute to forlune.C That he was fitted for the 
 chief magistracy of such a country and people, by all the qualities 
 of his great mind and character, and by all the habits of his public 
 and private life. That it would be vain to say, that a man nurtured 
 in the bosom of freemen, every one one of whom was by birthright 
 a politician — successively filling, by the choice of such a people, 
 high and important offices in the legislative, executive, and judicial 
 departments of government — was, notwithstanding all his ex- 
 perience, and such proofs of public esteem and confidence, incom- 
 petent to the administration of a popular government. That called, 
 as he had been, from the pursuits of civil life to military command, 
 he had become at once, and without regular military tuition, a gn at 
 captain. That having to trust to his own resources, and to depend 
 for success on the active and commanding energies of his own 
 mighty mind, he did not then disappoint his country. That his 
 combinations and conduct established a skill, a sagacity, and judg- 
 ment, that would have done honour to the most renowned com- 
 mander that had ever devoted a whole lifetime to the profession of 
 arms. And that if such had been the results of General Jackson's 
 capacity and talents, in a profession which he had but little 
 followed, the results would not be less beneficial or glorious, when 
 the same capacity, and talents, and integrity, should be devoted to 
 an office more congenial to his habits. That it was true, he was 
 not a man of great learning and genius, but, in lieu of these, he had 
 a common sense, a discretion and prudence, which nothing could 
 supply, and without which, knowledge was useless, and genius con- 
 temptible. That he was a man who never mistook what to do, or 
 what he was doing. That in regard to the fundamental questions 
 of constitutional doctrines and national policy, he had been politi- 
 cally nurtured in the school of our republican fathers, and that to 
 these tenets of his youth, he still adhered. And that, lastly, in 
 the language of Mr. Jefferson, he was " Honest, sincere, firm, and 
 strong-minded — of sound public principles; and that, if he should 
 be brought into the presidency, to correct the alarming tendency 
 towards favourite, and otherwise irremedial evils, which were be- 
 
264 MONTTJtENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 ginning to develope themselves in the administration of the federal 
 government, he (Jackson) would be found entirely faithful to the 
 object." These were the grounds on which he was presented to 
 the country, and in the election of 1828, he was placed by the peo- 
 ple in the presidential chair. 
 
 The duties of his administration, though less arduous, in many 
 respects, than those of his military command, yet required all the 
 fortitude and sagacity, which his previous command had so con- 
 spicuously displayed. He accordingly declared, that to guard against 
 the evils which Mr. Jefferson had shadowed forth, to retract the 
 government back to its republican track ; and give it stability and 
 energy, and preserve to his country her blessings of union and 
 peace, should be the first and great object of his duty. And, as his 
 friends had rightly supposed, few men had clearer conceptions of 
 the public good, or greater discernment in the selection of measures 
 and men to promote it, than General Jackson. None knew better 
 the great interests of his country — its history — domestic and foreign 
 relations — the points of its public policy — the temper of the peo- 
 ple — the genius of our political institutions, and the spirit of free 
 government ! He knew that the genius of our own institutions ; 
 the experience of other governments ; the records of history ; and 
 the sad and melancholy fate of a long train of fallen republics, ad- 
 monished us that libedy was only safe, when guarded by the wis- 
 dom and vigilance of frugal, industrious, and virtuous freemen ! 
 And it is not, therefore, wonderful, that the result of his adminis- 
 tration should have been, that as a statesman he was no less distin- 
 guished than as a warrior. Throughout his whole public career, 
 v/e look in vain for any of those vices, which oppose the prosperity 
 of nations, and the peace of the world, and which, at one time, 
 was so much apprehended, from his rule, by his political opponents. 
 His state papers and administration, afford abundant proofs of the 
 purity, as well as solidity, of his principles ; and it is impossible to 
 read them, and trace the whole course of his public career, without 
 admitting that he performed justly, skilfully, and magnanimously, 
 all the offices, both public and private, of peace and war. That 
 there was a considerable, nay, a large portion of his countrymen, 
 who had settled down in the conviction that General Jackson com- 
 mitted great errors in his administration, and inflicted deep injuries 
 upon his country, is true ; but this hostility was to be expected, and 
 must therefore be regarded as the result of party feeling, under our 
 institutions and form of government, rather than the evidence of 
 deliberate and candid judgment. Indeed, in a government like ours, 
 where opinions are free and spontaneous as the light which sur- 
 rounds us, who expects that we should all agree in the means to 
 produce any given end 1 It is this difference which creates, and 
 must ever continue to create, parties in free governments. To time 
 
EULOGY. 265 
 
 and experience must, therefore, be left the decision of many of 
 these great questions. But who knows that these convictions and 
 opinions, even when uninfluenced by party feelings, may not have 
 been the result of less profound views of the understanding of many 
 of those measures of his administration ! National virtue, national 
 freedom and greatness, and the issue of a mighty experiment in 
 free government — these were the great objects and purposes which 
 absorbed most of this great man's attention, and in connexion with 
 which, his administration must be regarded. May not the views of 
 others be too much overstrained to national wealth and national dis- 
 play ? Have they looked to the consequences, as regard posterity, 
 as well as our free institutions ? What, if avarice, and selfishness, 
 and national vanity, should supplant the love of country ! What, 
 if these vices should be cherished and nurtured into a growth that 
 shall chastise those simple and manly virtues, without which, men 
 care little by whom, or in what manner, they are governed ! Our 
 warriors and patriots of the Revolution, were not dandled in the lap 
 of pleasure, or pampered with foreign luxuries. They sought not sub- 
 stance and wealth amidst the skirts and quicksands of monied insti- 
 tutions, nor fought for the trappings which deck factitious greatness, 
 only to conceal the miseries accumulated in its train. No man ever 
 dreaded, more than General Jackson, the baleful influence of a 
 passion for gain, in its progress, often so degrading to national cha- 
 racter, dangerous to the tranquillity of the world, fatal to every en- 
 nobling sentiment, so destructive to social feeling, and which, 
 becoming the vulgar passion of free governments, enslaves their 
 people. He dreaded, moreover, that extension of the spirit of 
 traffic and trade,, apart from legitimate commerce, which can 
 only flourish in the intrigues and artifices of remorseless speculators. 
 He' had before him, the experience and history of the world ; the 
 long catalogue of fallen nations, and the annals of that ruin and 
 decay, produced by the love of gain, and the ravages of luxury 
 and corruption. He had not forgotten that Lacedremon, with her 
 savage manners, her rigid sumptuary laws, and her stern Ephori, 
 was, at last, so contaminated by wealth and luxury, that the most 
 illustrious virtues and examples could not restore her ancient insti- 
 tutions — and that Rome, the mistress of the world, and the arbiter 
 of the fate of nations, was overturned, more by the excessive love 
 of wealth, and the profligacy of her manners, than the arms of the 
 Goths and Vandals! It was under these views, and to these ends, 
 that some of the most important and efficient measures of his ad- 
 ministration were directed. It was the boast of one of the Roman 
 emperors, that he found the city of brick, and left it of marble. It 
 was General Jackson's, that he found the government one of paper, 
 and he determined to leave it one of gold ! 
 
 I know, fellow-citizens, that it has been charged against him, 
 23 
 
266 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 that he mistook the lust of power for the love of liberty ; and that 
 power and ambition, were the predominating passions of his soul; 
 to acquire which, he would sacrifice everything else — that he 
 sought to govern by terror, rather than opinion, and that one great 
 passion swallowed up every other — the means of acquiring and 
 perpetuating his own authority. Never, never were there more 
 unfounded accusations. His ambition was to deserve, not acquire, 
 the admiration of his fellow men ; and it was, therefore, never too 
 strong to leave him, at all times, honest. His ambition was to 
 serve his country, which he had loved too well, as his whole life 
 attests. He never ceased to remember, that those who would do 
 public service, must forget themselves — that their reward was from 
 within. When did he ever attempt the artifices of the demagogue, 
 to enlist the passions and feelings of the people? Whom did he 
 ever court ? To whom did he ever bow? What dissimulation did 
 he ever practise 1 What office did he ever solicit 1 What office 
 did he ever fill, in which he proved himself unworthy of power, 
 or public confidence ? When did he ever attempt to disguise his 
 designs, or, under the pretence of consulting the public good, gra- 
 tifv his own selfish passions or venal wants ? Let his unstained and 
 spotless life answer these questions. That he desired his adminis- 
 tration to be popular, is admitted — but it was not for his own selfish 
 purposes, but the general good. He knew that, in every country, 
 however despotic, much must depend on the will of the governed, 
 and that no government, much less a free one, could long hope for 
 success, whose measures did not fall in with the wishes and feel- 
 ings, nay, the passions of the people : that, in our country, this 
 must ever be the case. No one knew better than this great man, 
 that, with a people laborious, long trained to freedom and indepen- 
 dence, and in the possession of that liberty and industry which 
 enables wealth and influence to be disseminated amongst all classes 
 of society, the voice of such a people formed, and must ever form, 
 the support of free government ; and hence it is not to be wondered 
 at, that his administration should have been one of the most popu- 
 lar that this country ever had. So far, the principle of his heart 
 was democratic ! 
 
 But he was simply a military chieftain, and like Alexander, and 
 Caesar, and Cromwell, and Bonaparte, must be ambitious and dan- 
 gerous ! Yes, he was a military chieftain, and a glorious one too, 
 as I trust I have shown ; but where were the armies of Alexander? 
 the legions of Caesar? the soldiers of Cromwell ? or the guards of 
 Napoleon ? I '11 tell you, my beloved countrymen : they were 
 only to be found in the brave and honest citizens of this free coun- 
 try, whom he led to battle and victory, in vindication of its liber- 
 ties and glory ! This was the ambition of Andrew Jackson ! But 
 was he ambitious? No ! His spirit soared beyond ambition's reach. 
 
EULOGY. 267 
 
 He loved glory, but still more loved his country. That was his 
 master-passion ; and, with resistless might, it ruled his every thought, 
 and word, and deed. But he was vindictive to his opponents and 
 to those whom he disliked ! Of those whom he regarded as dan- 
 gerous and bad men, he certainly had great distrust. He regarded 
 distrust, in public life, as a defensive principle, and thought with 
 Burke, that there was no safety for honest men but in believing all 
 possible evil of bad men, and acting with decision and steadiness 
 on that belief. So far, and no farther, was he distrustful. 
 
 With all his fondness and acquired propensity for military glory, 
 and with every incentive to the exercise of arms, peace was the 
 ruling principle of his conduct, and the tranquil prosperity of his 
 country the dominant object of his ambition. This was finely 
 illustrated throughout his whole administration, and especially in 
 its intercourse with foreign states. And I shall never forget, in 
 the moment of my departure for England in 1836, his last words to 
 me as he bid me adieu, and it proved to be for ever, and which still 
 ring in my ears : " Take care, my good friend, to defend manfully 
 the rights and honour of your country : but, for God's sake, keep 
 the peace !" How often was it said to me, while abroad, by the 
 most enlightened and distinguished men — "Why, this General 
 Jackson of yours must be an extraordinary man — we expected from 
 what we heard, that he was to be the terror of the age, and the 
 disturber of the peace of the world — that war was to be the great 
 object of his administration. As it is, he has taken us all by sur- 
 prise, and may now be regarded as the great pacificator, and the 
 most illustrious and peaceful of all your rulers!" All Europe felt, 
 and acknowledged his pacific policj^. They saw the wisdom and 
 vigour of his measures, and acquiesced in his neutral peaceful po- 
 licy. And it may not be unworthy of notice, that one of the 
 greatest gratifications which he felt in laying down his high trust, 
 as I know, was, that he had preserved the peace of his country ! 
 He often said, that he came in with that determination, and had 
 looked to it with unsleeping anxiety. He felt it was necessary to 
 our prosperity, and thought, with Fox, that there was no justifiable 
 cause of war with civilized and enlightened nations, but national 
 honour ! 
 
 With respect to his administration, it is, perhaps, impossible, at 
 the present moment, to make up an impartial opinion, as to its 
 effects and benefits. It is not the time for calm and deliberate 
 judgment in relation to those troubled scenes. The tendency and 
 effects of some of his great measures, posterity, probably, will 
 alone be able to appreciate. But when the angry passions shall 
 have been allayed ; the judgment unwarped by excitement and 
 prejudice ; the heart no longer embittered with disappointment or 
 revenge ; nor the mind carried away by the imputation of unwor- 
 
26S Mo.vrnn.NT to jacksox. 
 
 thy motives; when the tendency of opinion and measures shall be 
 examined by the test of reason and experience, then, and not till 
 then, will full justice be done to this great man, and the distin- 
 guished actors in those troubled scenes. Then will the full nature 
 and the extent of public obligation be felt and acknowledged. 
 
 It is, however, honourable to him and his opponents that, amidst 
 all the contests and collisions of party, and those storms and strifes 
 which, for so many years, agitated our country, his integrity and 
 patriotism remained unsuspected and unimpeached. Even those 
 who believed his political errors to have been the most numerous 
 and mischievous, yet acknowledge that they were errors of the 
 mind, actuated by the purest wishes, and pursuing, with undevi- 
 ating rectitude of intention, the public good. 
 
 And all now must admit one thing, and it is this, that at the 
 close of the eight years of his administration, he laid down his 
 high trust in the midst of the wealth, prosperity, and happiness of 
 his country, and his own most unbounded popularity. Indeed, his 
 popularity seemed to be that of eternal youth — like the sun, its 
 light was always new, yet always the same. 
 
 The question will doubtless be agitated by posterity, whether he 
 was the greater general or statesman. Those who read attentively 
 the history of his administration and his official papers, will be in- 
 clined to pronounce in favour of the latter; while those who may 
 not have duly considered them, but, more narrowly scanning his 
 difficulties and sacrifices in war, will be inclined to decide in favour 
 of the former. The controversy will therefore only be solved by 
 admitting, as all must do, that he was great in war, and great in 
 peace. 
 
 We come now, in conclusion, to say a few words of this vene- 
 rable man, in retirement, and of his private and domestic virtues. 
 
 In March, 1837, General Jackson retired from public life to his 
 residence in Tennessee, followed by the fervent admiration and 
 gratitude of a devoted country. And what liberal and generous 
 mind might not have been deeply moved, in seeing the man whose 
 whole life had been devoted to his country, now abandoning power 
 and dedicating himself in retirement to his family and his God ? 
 
 And it was here that he exhibited a striking illustration of the 
 truth, that true greatness is perfectly compatible with every thing 
 that is amiable and engaging in man! 
 
 He who had occupied so important a page in his country's his- 
 tory, who had possessed a popularity and influence exceeded only 
 by Washington's, who had filled every high station of dignity and 
 trust which his country could confer, both civil and military, be- 
 came, when in the domestic circle and around the social hearth, 
 as simple as a child, distinguished by the suavity of his deportment 
 and an intuitive felicity of making every one around him happy. 
 
Stevenson's eulogy. 269 
 
 Such was Andrew Jackson, in private life ; and it is there that true 
 greatness waits to be exhibited. In the world, men rise superior 
 to each other ; but it is here that man rises superior to himself. 
 The region of politics, at best, is baneful ; and too often " the soil, 
 the vjces like." hi his private attachments, he was governed by 
 the same steadiness that sustained his public conduct. His friend- 
 ships were, therefore, sincere and fixed. If he loved you to-day, 
 he would love you still more to-morrow, the next day, and for ever, 
 provided you did nothing to forfeit his regard and good opinion. 
 Although, in a character marked by such strength of features, the 
 lineaments of the softer virtues could scarcely be expected to mix; 
 yet those who knew him best in private life, and in the unbendings 
 of retirement, knew the genuine indications of their existence, and 
 the childlike simplicity and tenderness of his nature. 
 
 His manners, though naturally dignified, were never haughty. 
 There was the same gentleness without timidity, and decision with- 
 out presumption. He blended dignity with condescension, and the 
 greatest as well as the humblest objects received his attention. 
 Born with strong passions, often the concomitants of genius, he 
 had acquired great command and ascendancy over them ; and, 
 among all his personal qualities, courage, both physical and moral, 
 were allowed to him, in an eminent degree. It was these only, 
 which, amidst those formidable agitations of party which, for so 
 many years of his administration, convulsed the American people, 
 could have enabled him, as they did, to remain firm and immova- 
 ble. In all matters of pecuniary concern, his dealings were dic- 
 tated by a punctual regard to his engagements, and, at the same 
 time, distinguished by great liberality; without indulging in ex- 
 cesses which bring on embarrassment. 
 
 His honesty can scarcely be said to have claimed the rank of a 
 virtue. It required no effort, and could therefore boast no triumph; 
 and it may not be deemed unimportant to remark, that among all 
 the various calumnies which malice has endeavoured to cast upon 
 the fame of this distinguished man, the tongue of slander never 
 whispered the imputation of a single act of mercenary meanness. 
 
 An inflexible consistency of principle, equally proof against 
 casual failure, and the most insurmountable difficulties — an erect- 
 ness of principle and a pride originating in and supported by con- 
 scious talents and integrity — were among his chief characteristics. 
 
 His hospitality was proverbial. The friend and the stranger 
 were received with cordial welcome at his hospitable mansion, and 
 his benevolence and kindness to his neighbours were acknowledged 
 with affectionate gratitude. Friend to the poor — for surely that 
 godlike virtue was his — he comforted and blessed them by his pri- 
 vate liberality and his public largesses. Bear witness, ye mourners 
 around the Hermitage, and you, good people of Tennessee ! 
 23* 
 
270 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 He was married but once, and had no children or blood relatives; 
 but the fraternal love which he bore towards the relations of his 
 beloved wife was as exemplary as it was sincere ; and the munifi- 
 cent presents for all her relatives attest the affection and devotion 
 which he bore to her (and she was worthy of it all !) and her kin- 
 dred. Nor was his munificence bounded by these limits. The 
 institutions of freedom and science were annually consulted and 
 most generously rewarded. 
 
 And who is there that must not have been struck with the pre- 
 servation of his intellect, and the fortitude and resignation which 
 he exhibited to the last hour? In the scenes which closed his 
 earthly career, his death was in every respect conformable to his 
 life. Never was he more true to his great character ! Even in 
 the moments of great bodily pain and approaching dissolution, 
 when it might have been expected that a man's every feeling would 
 be concentrated in personal suffering, his thoughts were occupied by 
 the awful event impending; and even in these moments, all selfish 
 considerations were put aside, and the sentiments still uppermost in 
 his mind were, God and his country. And his death was marked 
 by the coolness and serenity which are thought to belong exclu- 
 sively to health of body and a mind at ease. 
 
 1 To live with fame 
 
 The gods allow to many ; but to die, 
 With equal lustre, is a blessing Heaven 
 Selects from all her choicest boons of Fate 
 And with a sparing hand on few bestows." 
 
 One part only of his character now remains to be noticed ; and 
 tnat is, his reverence for religion. In all his public documents, 
 God is honoured ! A man of General Jackson's strong and supe- 
 rior mind could not but have had the strongest impressions of reli- 
 gion ; and doubtless, in his last moments, they smoothed his pillow 
 and whispered comfort to his soul. 
 
 It was therefore around his deathbed, that an additional lustre, 
 as well as sacredness, was thrown, by the manner in which he met 
 death, and the resignation which marked his last moments. He 
 felt that his time was come, and that " the paths of glory lead but 
 to the grave." He died, as he had lived — a Christian ; and his 
 last words were, " God and my country." 
 
 Of the military exploits of this truly great man, the hero shall 
 tell. Our young warriors shall be ambitious of emulating them. 
 The sage shall speak of his counsels — the statesman shall follow 
 them. All shall reverence his great virtues, to teach the rising 
 generation to imitate them. Millions yet unborn shall speak his 
 praise, and over his ashes hang the free tribute of gratitude and 
 tears; and, when marble and monuments shall moulder in the 
 dust, the name of Jackson shall still live. With you, my beloved 
 
Stevenson's eulogy. 271 
 
 countrymen, he will never die! He will live in your liberty and 
 glorious institutions ! He will live in that national prosperity 
 which he laboured to secure, for generations yet to come ! He 
 will live in his own great example, which has shown you how 
 to preserve what your fathers had so gloriously won ! By all his 
 inestimable services and splendid actions — by the respect and vene- 
 ration in which you hold his character — by the wisdom of his 
 counsels and the dignity of his example, appreciate, I beseech 
 you, your conceptions of his memory, by serving your country as 
 he served it, and honouring God as he honoured him. 
 
EULOGY 
 
 DELIVERED AT LOUISVILLE, KY, JULY 3, 1845, 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS L. SMITH, Esq. 
 
 Throughout all our vast country, we hear the voice of mourning. 
 A nation grieves for the loss of a loved and honoured son. The peo- 
 ple who compose this great assemblage, in like manner with others 
 of their fellow-countrymen elsewhere, have spontaneously gathered 
 together to do honour to the memory of a departed hero and patriot. 
 Men of all parties, and of all grades, pursuits and occupations, are 
 united on this occasion. All are sensible that the shaft of death 
 has reached an illustrious mark, and has removed from the con- 
 nexions of this earth, one, who, for a long series of years, has been 
 intimately associated in the minds of his fellow-citizens, with some 
 of the most brilliant eras in the annals of the country, and one who 
 has long been regarded, by a large proportion of the people, with 
 the highest degree of veneration and esteem. 
 
 DO 
 
 I know not how I shall give utterance to the sentiments which 
 so obviously pervade the whole country, in reference to the decease 
 of Andrew Jackson. Though we feel that his loss is a public 
 calamity, yet we cannot complain. Full of years, and of honours, 
 the venerable patriot has been gathered to his fathers. For more 
 than the full average period of human life, he has been spared to 
 his country, and few, indeed, have reaped such rich harvests of all 
 that human ambition is wont to crave whilst sojourning upon earth. 
 Nor was this event unlooked for, or unexpected, to himself, or to 
 us. For several years past, his increasing age and infirmities, gave 
 melancholy warning that he must ere long prepare for that dread 
 change to which all mortal men are subject. Still, we are not the 
 less sensibly affected, now that our natural anticipations have been 
 realized, and that the spirit that so long shone a brilliant light in 
 our sphere has been quenched, to us, for ever, and taken home to 
 its Heavenly Father. 
 
 A sensation, solemn, profound, universal, pervades all sections of 
 
 (272) 
 
273 
 
 the Uuion. A united people attend as mourners at his funeral. 
 They consign his mortal remains to the tomb of his own choice, 
 beneath the green soil of the land he loved so well, and by the side 
 of the beloved partner of his domestic joys and sorrows, who had 
 preceded him in death. There they will rest in honoured repose, 
 until the archangel's trump shall sound the summons to an ever- 
 lasting resurrection. But the memory of his illustrious deeds will 
 live — they will be familiar to the ears of unborn millions, and in 
 future ages, his example, and his counsels, will continue to exert a 
 beneficial influence over the destinies of his beloved country. 
 
 No other man, of his time, was so ardently beloved by a majority 
 of his fellow-citizens — no other wielded such influence over the 
 masses of the people. How much of that influence was beneficial, 
 and how much evil, in its results, has been the subject of violent 
 party contests, and it is, therefore, perhaps, not for the present gene- 
 ration to determine ; but all admit that his intentions were always 
 pure, and dictated by an ardent desire to promote the true interests 
 of the country. He was, in all respects, a hero and a patriot. At 
 all times, and in all seasons, he was ready to devote his energies, 
 and to sacrifice all personal considerations of safety, interest, and 
 even popularity, for the common good. He never hesitated in the 
 performance of a duty, which he believed was required of him, 
 whatever personal consequences might result to himself or others ; 
 and, on the other hand, no motive, either of personal advantage, or 
 compromise, or conciliation, could induce him, for one moment, to 
 entertain the idea of performing an act, which he believed was 
 wrong, or in violation of the obligations imposed upon him. 
 
 This well known inflexibility of purpose, was, unquestionably, 
 one of his most remarkable characteristics; and was, to a considerable 
 extent, the cause, both of the great admiration, and violent hostility, 
 with which persons of opposite political sentiments regarded cer- 
 tain leading measures of his civil administration. His political 
 friends had unbounded faith in the honesty and disinterestedness of 
 his intentions, in his comprehensive judgment to foresee threatened 
 dangers, and provide measures for the public security, and in his 
 dauntless courage and abilities to persevere in the accomplishment 
 of those measures, at all hazards, and in despite of all difficulties. 
 Nor -was this faith granted blindly, or gratuitously. It was based 
 upon their experience and observation of his whole course of action, 
 and upon the knowledge that each successive development of his 
 views and objects, were, after the severest scrutiny, fully sanctioned 
 by their own reason and judgment. 
 
 General Jackson certainly possessed all the elements of greatness 
 — a clear and comprehensive intellect, a quickness of conception 
 that seemed intuitive, and an incomparable energy, and power of 
 action in carrying his conceptions into effect. This rare combina- 
 
274 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 tion of the powers of deliberation and execution, almost necessarily 
 rendered him the leading spirit in all the positions which he oc- 
 cupied through life. While yet a mere youth of thirteen years 
 of age, he bore an active and conspicuous part in several severe 
 and sanguinary skirmishes with the English troops and Tories, in his 
 native state, South Carolina. In 1788, at the age of twenty-one, 
 he removed to Tennessee, and in a very few years, we find him a 
 member of the convention elected to frame a constitution for the 
 state, of the House of Representatives, and of the Senate of the 
 United States. Thus, at the age of thirty, a period of life when 
 ordinary men have but just entered upon their career, he had already 
 filled some of the most important and exalted offices in the gift of 
 the people, amongst whom he had made his residence. 
 
 Yet he never courted offices or honours. Those that were be- 
 stowed upon him by his fellow-citizens, were granted by their un- 
 bought suffrages, and naturally resulted from the general sense of 
 his incorruptible integrity, and his superior qualifications. These 
 were equally manifest in all situations, in peace, and in war, in the 
 cabinet, and in the field. Wherever he appeared, the people be- 
 held in him, the man of the age, who, more than any other, was 
 qualified to direct the helm on important or difficult occasions. So 
 little did he covet official station, that, in 1799, while yet a young 
 man, he voluntarily resigned his seat in the Senate of the United 
 States, one of the most honourable, dignified, and desirable offices, 
 which this country nffords. Soon after, he also resigned his seat 
 on the bench of the Supreme Court of Tennessee, to which he had 
 been appointed on his retirement from the Senate. It has been 
 said, that he resigned these offices in consequence of his own sense 
 of a want of suitable qualifications. If so, this is but another 
 proof of the innate greatness and magnanimity of his mind. What 
 ordinary men resign high and lucrative offices from such motives? 
 It is rare, indeed, that common men retire from such positions from 
 a sense of personal unfitness, or a disinterested desire to make way 
 for others better qualified to promote the public interest. It is, 
 perhaps, still more rare, that men of common minds can perceive 
 their own deficiencies, when possessed of the unbounded confidence 
 of the community, and elevated to distinguished station, without 
 desire or solicitation on their own part. Experience proves that 
 it is only men of superior intellect and capacity, who are thus 
 liable to doubt their own abilities, and such men, notwithstanding 
 their distrust in themselves, have always been found to be the most 
 faithful and able depositories of public trusts. 
 
 Andrew Jackson was not ambitious, in the ordinary sense of the 
 term. Had he been so, it would be impossible to account for his 
 absolute relinquishment of the abundant means which were thus 
 early placed within his reach for the gratification of that passion, 
 
smith's eulogy. 275 
 
 and that too, at the very period of life when most men are strongly 
 influenced by its promptings. He preferred peaceful tranquillity, 
 and domestic felicity, in the bosom of his own family, to all the 
 allurements of ambition. Nothing had power to call him forth but 
 necessity. While his country enjoyed peace and prosperity, he 
 only aspired to be the humblest of its citizens, and to dispense 
 around him the comforts and blessings of domestic life. A lover 
 of peace, he was yet prompt to obey the first calls upon his duty as 
 a man and a patriot. When all was calm and peaceful, interest or 
 ambition could not lure him from his privacy ; but when dangerous 
 clouds darkened the horizon, and the alarms of war broke upon the 
 startled ears of his countrymen, then were all eyes turned to him, 
 the master-spirit of the times, whose unerring sagacity, dauntless 
 courage, and resistless energy of purpose, plainly marked him out 
 as the man, of all others, most fitted to take the lead in the hour 
 of danger. How nobly, and how well, he fulfilled the hopes and 
 expectations which were thus inspired, is written on many bright 
 pages of our national history. 
 
 Well may the nation mourn for Andrew Jackson. We shall not 
 soon behold his like again. All sections of our wide extended 
 country, will feel the loss it has sustained. The people of the 
 southern states grieve for their most gallant and chivalric defender. 
 When the lone settlers upon the frontier wilderness, were exposed 
 to the horrors of savage warfare, he was the guardian genius who 
 protected and avenged them. Their trials and dangers have long 
 passed away, but they are not forgotten by the inhabitants of that 
 section of the country. Many an aged veteran still sits by his fire- 
 side, and recounts to his children the history of those troubled days. 
 He tells them how men were wakened in the dead of night by the 
 wild and fearful warwhoop — how they were shot down upon their 
 own thresholds, or fled by the light of their burning cabins — how 
 old men, and women, and helpless babes, were put to death with 
 cruel tortures — how distracted mothers, with their trembling 
 children, wandered many a weary mile through the wild woods, 
 seeking refuge and shelter — all these, and many other stirring 
 scenes of Indian wars, he will narrate in the long winter evenings 
 and the summer noons. And when their young blood boils ;>t 
 these recitals, he will tell also of the gallant deeds of the heroic 
 chieftain who is now no more — how promptly and expeditiously he 
 flew to their relief — how victory followed his banners wherever he 
 appeared, and how, from place to place, and with many a bloody 
 and hard fought contest, he drove back the savage warriors into the 
 recesses of their forests, and gave permanent peace and tranquillity 
 to the distressed country. 
 
 The people of the west have also lost, in him, their bravest and 
 most successful champion — and thousands who followed under his 
 
276 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 victorious standard will mourn him as their chieftain, father, friend. 
 A rigid disciplinarian, and of iron inflexibility of purpose, he was 
 yet all these to those who faithfully served under his command. 
 Cheerfully he shared all their dangers and their privations. The 
 sick and wounded always found in him a most faithful and attentive 
 guardian, watchful to provide for their security, and anxious to re- 
 lieve their slightest necessities. He possessed a heart overflowing 
 with kindness to his friends, and an attachment to his comrades-in- 
 arms that no distance could weaken, no time could eradicate. The 
 tears of those faithful companions of his perils and his glory will 
 fall like rain drops upon his grave. They knew him well, and 
 none knew him but loved him. Sooner might the heart's blood be 
 extracted from an old western soldier than his love and reverence 
 for the memory of Andrew Jackson. 
 
 The people of the whole Union will honour him as one who has 
 shed imperishable lustre upon the American name — who raised up 
 the drooping spirit of his countrymen in the hour of their greatest 
 despondency and gloom, and electrified all hearts by the glorious 
 victory he achieved over a foreign foe upon the plains of New Or- 
 leans. Ah ! what recollections throng around us, as we recall to 
 mind the memorable day when that noble army of western citizens, 
 headed by their dauntless chieftain, met and conquered the choicest 
 veterans of Europe, on the banks of the Mississippi. The despond- 
 ent fears of our own countrymen, and the vauntings of the enemy, 
 as they came careering on, with their watchword of "Beauty and 
 booty," and with songs, and jests, and revelry, despising the undis- 
 ciplined militia of the west, are still ringing in our ears. Con- 
 querors of Spain, veterans in war, and flushed with recent victory 
 over the far-famed legions of France, they but anticipated a march 
 of pleasure, to plunder and ravage a defenceless city. How they 
 were disappointed, is now familiar history to every inhabitant of 
 this country, and England will long remember that bloody field 
 where thousands of the bravest chivalry still sleep, not in the 
 arms of beauty, but in the cold embrace of death. And well do 
 the citizens of that day remember, how the glorious news of that 
 great victory spread from town to town, and from state to state — 
 how shouts of joyful exultation went up, and bonfires and illumi- 
 nations lightened all the land — and how the heroic Jackson, and 
 the brave hunters of Kentucky and Tennessee, were hailed and 
 cheered as the defenders and saviours of their country. Ah ! the 
 glory of that day will never be forgotten, while the star-spangled 
 banner flings its glorious folds " o'er the land of the free, and the 
 home of the brave.'' When they think of that day, and its results, 
 immediate and remote, all classes and conditions of men who love 
 their country, and are proud of its fame, will honour the memory 
 of Andrew Jackson. How proudly they do think of them, and 
 
smith's eulogy. 277 
 
 how highly they estimate his services, is manifested by the sinceri- 
 ty and unanimity with which they join in the general testimonials 
 of respect a grateful nation now awards him. All join in these 
 funeral solemnities. The plain citizen honours his devotion to his 
 country, his obedience to the laws, and the spotless integrity of his 
 private life; and the citizen soldier comes with martial tramp and 
 muffled drum, to do respectful homage at the tomb of a departed 
 chieftain, whose military achievements will bear honourable com- 
 parison with those of the most celebrated heroes of ancient or mo- 
 dern times. 
 
 Of the civil services of Andrew Jackson, although they form so 
 large and important a part of his public life, it is not my purpose 
 now to speak. The time has not yet arrived when the country 
 can form a united judgment with respect to them. At some future 
 time, when the remembrance of the fierce contests and the inte- 
 rests and passions, which came in collision during the party con- 
 flicts of the day shall have passed from the minds of men, posterity 
 will do him impartial justice and pronounce a proper verdict upon 
 his political course. To that tribunal let us commit the task of 
 setting the conflicting opinions which now exist in reference to this 
 portion of his public life. It is honourable to those who have en- 
 tertained sentiments of hostility to his political acts, that they can 
 thus bury all feelings of resentment in his grave, and join in a cor- 
 dial manifestation of respect for those virtues and services which 
 all can acknowledge and all approve. So may it ever be, with all 
 parties in this country. Certainly, I would deeply regret, on an 
 occasion like the present, to give utterance to a single thought that 
 could mar the general unanimity. 
 
 We may, however, look back upon some of the circumstances 
 connected with his administration of the general government, with- 
 out disturbing the elements of party discord. Stern and inflexible 
 as he was, in pursuing himself, and in compelling others under his 
 control to pursue the strict line of policy which, in his judgment, 
 was correct, he yet possessed a charm in his manners and deport- 
 ment, that insensibly won the affection and esteem of all with whom 
 he habitually came in contact. In his intercourse with all men, he 
 was remarkable for his plain republican dignity and graceful cour- 
 tesy. His kindness of heart and amenity of manners were so ap- 
 parent and unaffected, that all who knew him, with but few excep- 
 tions, personally loved and admired him. Yet no man could ap- 
 proach him, without being sensible of the presence of an individual 
 possessing extraordinary powers of mind and of influence. It was 
 plain, indeed, that the same master-spirit, which all men had re- 
 cognised and acknowledged in the camp, ruled in the councils of 
 the nation and in the halls of the presidential mansion. The same 
 comprehensive intellect, the same quickness of perception, and the 
 24, 
 
278 
 
 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 same rigid inflexibility of purpose marked him as the leader of 
 other men as well in one situation as the other. 
 
 Vehement as he was in despotism, he was yet patient in investi- 
 gation. No great public measure was ever commenced in rash 
 haste — no individual was ever injured by intentional injustice, or 
 by inconsiderate or careless action. The remarkable powers of in- 
 fluence that he wielded, were not confined to our country or people. 
 They were sensibly experienced by all nations with which we 
 were on terms of intercourse. Negotiations that seemed intermi- 
 nable, were suddenly cut short, and brought to a satisfactory close. 
 Losses sustained by our citizens, by the illegal seizure of their ves- 
 sels, during the previous wars in Europe, were promptly adjusted 
 and repaid. What all the skill of the most able diplomatists could 
 not accomplish in many years, was brought about at once by the 
 magic influence of his character. These effects were the result of 
 the same convictions of his integrity of purpose, and his inflexible 
 resolution in adhering to his determinations, which had given him 
 such extraordinary power over the minds of the people of our own 
 country. At no period did our national character stand higher 
 abroad than during that of his administration. There was no 
 civilized country where our flag was not honoured and respected. 
 We can look back to the condition of our foreign relations during 
 that period with pride and gratification — confident that we shall 
 find nothing to blush for or regret in any of the transactions of the 
 government with other nations. A liberal, enlightened, and high- 
 toned self-respecting policy was always adhered to. Though strict 
 in requiring even-handed justice, General Jackson on all occasions 
 endeavoured to promote a free and profitable intercourse with all 
 foreign countries. Advantageous commercial treaties were made 
 with almost all the principal nations of the globe, most of which 
 are still in force. His comprehensive views extended to every- 
 thing which could improve the old or open new avenues to the en- 
 terprise of the people. 
 
 But the public life and character of Andrew Jackson, forms a 
 continuous portion of the whole history of the country for a long 
 series of years. I am sensible how extremely imperfect must be 
 any attempt to give even a scanty outline with the means and op- 
 portunies at my command. The task of delineating them in full 
 must b^ reserved for other and much abler pens. They afford 
 abundant materials for the occupation of future historians, philoso- 
 phers, and statesmen. 
 
 Perhaps in no part of the whole career of the venerated patriot, 
 was the greatness and magnanimity of his character more truly 
 manifested, than in the closing years of his eventful life. Provi- 
 dence granted him length of days, and he filled them well unto the 
 end. After enjoying all the fame and honours of a military con- 
 
279 
 
 queror, and all of power, station, and dignity his country could be- 
 stow, he retired to spend the remnant of his life in humble pri- 
 vacy, and to dispense around him in his domestic sphere, the be- 
 nign influence of a life of Christian piety and resignation. Men 
 had been accustomed to contemplate him as he appeared on the 
 theatre of the world, surrounded with martial trappings, or dis- 
 pensing power and patronage from his exalted official positions. 
 They were well acquainted with the splendid characteristics by 
 which he was so distinguished amongst his contemporaries — his 
 military genius, his bravery, probity, vigilance, activity, and firm- 
 ness — his lofty bearing and magnanimity, which had attracted the 
 admiration of all nations. All these traits were familiar to the 
 public, but it remained for him to prove, how cheerfully, after he 
 had finished his public tasks, he could disrobe himself of all the 
 paraphernalia of rank and power, and devote the remainder of his 
 days to the faithful performance of his duties as an humble citizen 
 and pious Christian. Such was Andrew Jackson in his retirement. 
 Kindness, gentleness, and the holy influence of fervid religion reign- 
 ed around him. As a parent, friend, and neighbour, he was beloved 
 beyond expression. In his household all was peace and tranquillity. 
 Though long suffering with disease and infirmities, he was patient 
 and forbearing — full of gratitude to his Creator for the blessings and 
 favours he had enjoyed though life, and calmly awaiting death, in 
 the hope of immortality through the medium of the Redeemer of 
 Mankind. 
 
 I have attempted, briefly, to sketch some of the most prominent 
 traits of the character of the illustrious man whose loss we lament. 
 I am fully conscious how feebly I have done so, but I know also 
 that there is little need of recalling them to the minds of the peo- 
 ple of this country. The recapitulation is but a form, for they are 
 felt and appreciated in the minds of my hearers more vividly and 
 truly than I have power to portray. No man ever exceeded him 
 in the love he bore his country — none but one ever rendered that 
 country more eminent services. He was the man suited to the 
 times and emergencies in which he lived. May an over-ruling 
 Providence rear up in the future days of our republic, others who 
 may equal him in ardent patriotism, and with qualities equally 
 suitable to guard its interests and its safety. 
 
EULOGY 
 
 DELIVERED AT EASTON, PA, JUNE 28, 1845, 
 
 BY 
 
 WASHINGTON M'CARTNEY, Esq. 
 
 Citizens, Soldiers, Americans : — No man liveth unto himself, 
 and no man dieth unto himself. This is a moral law of our race, 
 revealed by the spirit of divine truth, and felt through the world. 
 Andrew Jackson has lived — Andrew Jackson is dead. Did he live 
 unto himself? Did he die unto himself? The history of his coun- 
 try declares that he did not so live and die. The solemn dirge, 
 whose tones have just sighed along these walls, announces that he 
 did not so live and die. He obeyed the moral law of his race. 
 Had he lived unto himself, and died unto himself, why these funeral 
 weeds, these dismal symbols, these memorials of the departed one ? 
 What does a nation say of him, whom dead, we now lament? 
 Listen to its voice, — through the valleys, and along the streams, 
 from the western prairie to the eastern city, from the thousand 
 waters of the Mississippi to the Atlantic border, there rises up the 
 voice of mourning. A nation tolls the funeral bell. A nation puts 
 on the garments of sorrow. Andrew Jaekson is no more. No 
 more ? No more, did I say ? Recall that phrase " no more." It 
 grates too harshly. It harmonizes not with the religious faith that 
 promises immortality. It accords not with the fond feelings of a 
 nation. Faith follows the departed hero beyond the grave, at the 
 Hermitage, and forbids us to say " He is no more." Our inward 
 nature re-echoes to our faith. The nation's hero still lives. He 
 belonged to a race which enjoys immortality. He lives, too, in his 
 country's history. Though dead, he still speaketh. He speaks to 
 a nation in his worthy deeds. He speaks from the battle-field, 
 from the hall of state, and from the Hermitage. He has, this day, 
 brought you together. 
 
 But what does this day's gathering say of Andrew Jackson ? 
 What says the muffled drum, the solemn music, the crape-shrouded 
 flag? They announce that he had a place in the hearts of his 
 
 (280) 
 
m'cartney's eulogy. 281 
 
 countrymen. They announce that he has been recalled to give an 
 account of his mission to earth. They announce that he has lived 
 not unto himself, and that he died not unto himself. 
 
 During his life, he received honours from his country, such as 
 few men have received. Upon his grave, a nation bestows the 
 testimonial of its sincere affection. 
 
 What teas Andrew Jackson, and what did he do, that he should 
 receive such honours while living, and when dead, should gather a 
 nation round his tomb? What was he? He was the imbodiment 
 of the true spirit of the nation in which he lived. What did he 
 do?- He put himself at the head of the great movement ofthe age 
 in which he lived. This was what he was, and this was what he 
 did. For this, a nation admired him while living, and for this, a 
 nation pays him those cypress honours in which we this day join. 
 Let it be our theme to show that Andrew Jackson did imbody the 
 true spirit of his nation, that he did put himself at the head of the 
 great movement of his age, and that because he was this, and did 
 this, he received, and yet receives, the admiration and the honour 
 of his countrymen. Around this theme, we might cluster the 
 thrilling scenes of his military life, the prominent actions of hi* 
 political, and the praiseworthy deeds of his domestic life. For all 
 these enter into the description of what he was, and what he did. 
 
 We have said that Andrew Jackson imbodied the ruling spirit of 
 his country, and entered heart and soul into the great movement of 
 his age. Run the eye across the history of the world. You observe 
 that there are certain cycles, or ages, or periods of time, which have 
 their peculiar spirit, their ruling passion, their great, characterizing, 
 distinctive movements. He, who imbodies in its greatest fulness, 
 the spirit of such an age, and enters with most earnestness into its 
 movements, receives the admiration of his cotemporaries. They 
 bestow their honours upon him while living, and when dead, they 
 embalm his memory, and inurn him in their warmest affections. 
 And why? because they see in him their own image. Because, in 
 him is concentrated the spirit that has burned in their own bosom. 
 Because, in him exists, in bodily form, in living flesh and blood, the 
 spirit that gives them life and motion. The spirit of God de- 
 scended upon the Saviour of the world in the form of a dove. 
 The spirit of an age sometimes descends to future generations in the 
 form of a man. An individual sometimes appears, who becomes 
 the dove-like incorporation of the spirit, that moves through vast 
 masses of men. The admiration merited by him, and bestowed 
 upon him, is in proportion to the nature, extent, and intensity, of 
 that Spirit which finds its fulness of existence in him. The 
 Redeemer of man, when upon earth, was the imbodiment of the 
 pure spirit that moves and directs all humanity in its regenerated 
 life. Beside him, all approaches towards the imbodiment of the 
 24* 
 
282 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 pure, life-giving spirit of the race, have been local, partial, imper- 
 fect. But in proportion as an individual concentrates within him- 
 self, the spirit which works through masses of men, and -which 
 moves, and should move them through the greatest cycle of time. 
 in that proportion, he becomes entitled to their admiration and 
 praise. In William Tell, the spirit of Switzerland's liberty existed 
 in its fulness. Switzerland gazed — admired — roused itself at the 
 twang of his bow, and still honours the hero. Luther was the 
 typing out, in human form, of a spirit that circulated all over 
 Europe. When the nations saw their image in him, they admired 
 the man. Europe did him reverence. Nations gathered around 
 him. Washington was the typing out, in living flesh and blood, of 
 that burning spirit of liberty, that pervaded three millions of free- 
 men. In him, it existed as in its dove-like imbodiment. Hamilton 
 and Jefferson, became each the type and image of his party. 
 Thousands saw in them the fulness of their own ideal of political 
 perfection. Therefore Hamilton and Jefferson were admired But 
 why add to the muster-roll of names, to verify the truth, so widely 
 felt, that he who gains the admiration of a nation, must be the type, 
 the image, the imbodied spirit of the nation. The historical heavens 
 are full of stars — but one star differeth from another star in glory. 
 One shines brighter than its fellows, because it has more of the 
 matter of light within it. But all who shine as the stars of history, 
 derive their brightness from the degree of perfection in which they 
 imbody the spirit that pervades vast aggregations of men. Because 
 his countrymen saw their image and spirit in Andrew Jackson, they 
 bestowed their honour and admiration upon him. Begin then, at 
 the lowest grade of those who receive the praise of their fellow- 
 men. Fill up the catalogue of stars. Go from the dimmest to the 
 brighest. Advance from the village hero, upwards, and upwards, 
 and upwards, till you arrive at the impersonation of all human 
 perfection. Where, on such a list, would you inscribe the name, 
 
 ANDREW JACKSON. 
 
 The position of his name upon the list of honour, will depend 
 upon the degree of perfection in which he was the image of his 
 fellow-republicans. 
 
 To see in what degree of perfection he imbodied the spirit of 
 his countrymen, look at him 
 
 As a military man, 
 
 As a politician, 
 
 As a citizen. 
 
 Contemplate him first as a military man. What was he, and 
 what did he do ? A native of South Carolina, he was early engaged 
 in the cause of his country. An Irishman, by descent, he inherited 
 the ardent character of his race. A republican, in all his youthful 
 feelings, the fires of the Revolution brought him into the field. 
 
m'cartney's eulogy. 283 
 
 Engaged in an unsuccessful skirmish, he became prisoner in the 
 hands of the enemy. He was then fourteen years of age. 
 
 " Black my boots," said a British officer, to the captured Jackson. 
 "I am a prisoner of war, and entitled to be treated as such," 
 replied Jackson, and refused. A stroke from the sword of the 
 officer nearly terminated the life of the bold prisoner. Here was 
 the beginning of the warrior. Here was the first exhibition of 
 that American spirit which existed in him in a bodily form. The 
 incident may seem a trifle ; but it was connected with a great prin- 
 ciple ; for the Americans had been stigmatized as rebels during the 
 Revolution. Captured rebels are not treated as prisoners of war. 
 By claiming to be such a prisoner, Andrew Jackson asserted that 
 he belonged not to a band of rebels, but to a nation that was war- 
 ring against another nation. His country had already become the 
 idol of his boyish heart. To assert her honour, to maintain her 
 national character, he put his life in his hand, and took the " re- 
 sponsibility" of disobeying the debasing command. Here was the 
 spirit that then pervaded revolutionary America ! To maintain the 
 national character, to assert the high and honourable motives 
 which impelled the colonies to the war, to be and to be regarded 
 as a nation of upright men ; to accomplish this, was a desire 
 which in those days glowed in the breast of every American — 
 Tories and Cowboys excepted. This spirit had a complete habita- 
 tion in Andrew Jackson, the " prisoner of war." 
 
 But the Revolution ended, and thirty years of peace circulated 
 over the country. When the aggressions of Great Britain plunged 
 us into the war of 1812, where was Andrew Jackson? What 
 military exhibition did he then make that in him was imbodied a 
 double portion of the spirit that fired his countrymen'? Let his 
 military actions speak. They are known to all the world — to the 
 American world, at least ; and, I might add, they are known to the 
 British and to the Southern Indians. To him was committed the 
 management of the war in the South-west. Placed at a distance 
 from the seat of government, he was compelled to rely very much 
 upon his own judgment in the conduct of his military operations. 
 Orders written at Washington city for his direction, sometimes did 
 not reach him until three months after their date. In this position, 
 he was frequently compelled to risk his own reputation and honour 
 for the safety of his country. Thus left to himself, he waged war 
 upon the Indians of Alabama and Georgia. As an illustration of 
 the difficulties of his position, look at the manner in which he was 
 brought into contact with the Spanish government. Florida be- 
 longed to Spain. Florida gave shelter to the British and Indians, 
 who prepared within its limits those expeditions that spread deso- 
 lation along the South-western frontier. General Jackson remon- 
 strated with the Spanish governor of Florida, upon this iniquitous 
 
284 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 procedure. He demanded that the Spanish government should 
 preserve, not only a nominal, but an actual neutrality, and put an 
 end to such expeditions. The governor quibbled, promised, de- 
 layed, discussed the rights of neutrals, did nothing, and finally made 
 some observations upon General Jackson's diplomatic character. 
 
 " I will announce my diplomatic character at the mouth of my 
 cannon," replied General Jackson, and marched his army into Flo- 
 rida, sacked Pensacola, and destroyed the nest in which had been 
 hatched the Indian massacres. Spain murmured, but his country 
 approved the daring and the doing, and Spain was quiet. Here 
 was the man — here was the general, who risked reputation and 
 honour for the peace and prosperity of his beloved country. Here 
 was a moral heroism that far excels the heroism of the battle-field. 
 Here his country admired the man, because he acted from motives 
 which they honoured, and which they felt would long preserve 
 American republicanism. 
 
 Through all his operations against the Indians and their British 
 instigators, he exhibited that same bold, fearless, cautious conduct, 
 which drew forth the admiration of his country. They admired it 
 because it was such conduct as they felt was needed in a republic 
 in such a crisis. In all his marches and victories over the Indians, 
 he displayed a vigilance, activity, perseverance, and daring, that 
 have seldom been equalled — never surpassed. But it was at 
 Orleans that he filled up the measure of his military renown. The 
 glories of that memorable defence need no recital here. The 
 country knows it by heart. Often as the cannon of the 8th of 
 January awakens the recollection of the great deliverance of that 
 proud city of the South, the American republic echoes and re- 
 echoes the name of Andrew Jackson. But in working out this 
 deliverance, General Jackson was compelled to take a responsibility 
 which has seldom fallen upon the generals of the republic. In that 
 city were congregated Spaniards, Frenchmen, Italians, adventurers, 
 spies, traitors, villains of all grades and of all hues. To control 
 this mass, and defend the city, General Jackson extended his camp 
 to include Orleans, and subjected it to martial law. Here was an 
 exercise of authority which his duty compelled him to make. But 
 the results of the measure were immediately beneficial. Order 
 rose out of confusion ; the energies of the populace were rallied 
 round their defender. Judges became soldiers ; villains disap- 
 peared. The success of the final hour of trial adorned the brow 
 of the hero with military laurels such as have been seldom worn. 
 In the whole work of the defence, in its grand operations, in the 
 hour of battle and in the hour of victory, he was everywhere the 
 general which the republic needed at such a time. The thirtieth 
 anniversary of this brilliant victory carried notes of rejoicing to 
 the veteran general in the Hermitage. It announced to him that 
 
macartney's eulogy. 285 
 
 his military character was such as a republican nation rejoiced to 
 find in one of its generals. 
 
 It seemed to be the peculiar characteristic of the military opera- 
 tions of General Jackson, that they all involved the decision of 
 most important questions in municiple or international law. We 
 have seen the responsibility thrown upon him in his conduct of 
 the Indian war, when he invaded Florida, and in his defence of 
 Orleans, when he declared martial law. A similar responsibility 
 rested upon him in the Seminole war of 1817 and 1818. In this 
 war the old difficulty was renewed. Florida still belonged to 
 Spain; but within its boundaries .were congregated the runaway 
 negroes of the South, the disaffected Indians, the buccaneer Spa- 
 niards, and other impracticable materials. Instigated by British 
 adventurers, these renegades and savages waged predatory wars and 
 massacres upon the South-western border. To General Jackson 
 was committed the defence of this region. He remonstrated with 
 the Spanish authorities of Florida. Again his remonstrances were 
 unavailing. Thinking that the best way to terminate such a war 
 was to carry our arms where our enemies were, he again invaded 
 Florida, took St. Marks and Pensacola, hanged the British adven- 
 turers, Arburthnot and Ambrister, and put an end to the hostilities. 
 Again his country justified his measures. Again his country said 
 that he had done what, in all the circumstances, a general of a re- 
 public should do. 
 
 Such was the military daring and doing of General Jackson. 
 Obedient to the call of his country, he assumed the command. 
 Placed in circumstances of peculiar difficulty, he acted the part of 
 an energetic and consummate general. Deciding momentous ques- 
 tions of national and municiple law, he maintained the honour and 
 safety of the country, in the hours of greatest peril. He put him- 
 self in the first rank of military men. He became emphatically 
 General Jackson. He was at the head of the military part of that 
 American influence which has long been acting in the world. It 
 was because in him the nation saw a proper type of its own na- 
 tional spirit that he merited and received the honours paid to his 
 military conduct. Preceding, and during the war of 1812, much 
 was said, between the political parties of our country, about fo- 
 reign influence. The federalists accused the democrats of being 
 under French influence. The democrats recriminated by charging 
 the federalists with being under British influence. But the bril- 
 liant military career of General Jackson told that there was some- 
 thing more in the country than either British or French influence. 
 The victories of Talladega, Tohopeka, of Pensacola, and of Or- 
 leans, announce pretty decidedly that there was an American in- 
 fluence on this side of the Atlantic. What part did General Jack- 
 son take in this American influence % He was its military chief. 
 
286 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 His cannon announced his participation in it. His countrymen 
 saw in him the fulness of that national ardour, and of that military 
 sagacity which they felt would preserve their country against a 
 world in arms. For this reason the nation responded to the cele- 
 brated toast of Mr. Jefferson — " Honour and gratitude to the man 
 who has filled the measure of his country's glory." 
 
 Let us next look at Andrew Jackson as a political character. 
 Let us see in what degree he was a proper political type and repre- 
 sentative of the American republic. In his political career, he 
 manifested the same devotion to his country, to its honour abroad, 
 and to its welfare at home, which had made him so much admired 
 in his military life. By education a lawyer, he was intimately 
 acquainted with the origin of our government. A young man, in 
 the days when our present constitution was ordained and esta- 
 blished, he knew its true intent and object. Appointed attorney- 
 general of the territory now Tennessee, he was familiar with the 
 judicial peculiarities of our constitution. A prominent member 
 of the convention which framed the constitution of his state, he 
 was well acquainted with the origination and provisions and nature 
 of our republican system. In rapid succession, a member of Con- 
 gress, a senator of the United States, and a judge of the Supreme 
 Court of Tennessee, he saw the practical operation of the national 
 and state governments. He saw their interaction. He saw their 
 harmonious movements, and penetrated deep into our republican 
 organization. Brought, during his military life, into conflict with 
 the Spanish government, he understood our national rights and 
 foreign relations. Appointed governor of Florida, immediately 
 after the purchase of that territory, he was placed in a position of 
 more than ordinary civil responsibility. Clothed with undefined 
 powers, he was entrusted with the entire executive, military, and 
 judicial administration of that region. Nicholas of Russia never 
 had as unlimited authority over a district as had Andrew Jackson 
 over Florida. What did he do? Become a tyrant ? Hear him : 
 
 " I am clothed," said he, " with powers which no one under a 
 republic ought to possess, and which I trust will never again be 
 given to any man. Nothing will give me more happiness than to 
 learn that Congress in its wisdom shall have distributed them pro- 
 perly, and in such a manner as is consonant to our earliest and 
 deepest impressions. Yet, as I hold these powers by the authority 
 of an act of Congress, it becomes my duty to discharge the sacred 
 trust imposed upon me according to the best of my abilities, even 
 though the proper exercise of the powers given might involve me 
 in heavy personal responsibilities. It has been my misfortune to 
 be thus circumstanced in my various relations as a public servant. 
 Yet I never have, nor never will I shrink from the discharge of 
 my public duties from any apprehension of personal responsibility." 
 
m'cartney's eulogy. 287 
 
 Spoken in the true tone of an American ! Could Washington 
 have spoken more to the republican heart 1 His actions conformed 
 to his words. Here was the true republican. 
 
 Schooled by all this preliminary exercise, he was nominated to 
 the presidency of the United States, in 1828. On this occasion, 
 he passed through a political canvass, which, for searching inquiry 
 and party earnestness, has seldom been equalled, and certainly 
 never surpassed. But he was the man of the people's choice, and 
 entered into the highest office in our republic. Twice was he 
 called to the same exalted station, and then, like the Father of his 
 Country, he bade farewell to the cares of office, and retired to the 
 enjoyments of domestic life. 
 
 His administration is too recent to be correctly appreciated. Its 
 results are not yet all developed. His policy was the constant 
 theme of political discussion during his continuance in office. The 
 measures of his administration can be more properly valued when 
 time shall have healed the wounds of party. Future years alone can 
 do full justice to the presidential lite of him whose memory we this 
 day honour. When time mellows the passions of men, and pure rea- 
 son sits in judgment upon the illustrious dead, then is pronounced the 
 historical sentence of posterity. What judgment will this posterity 
 pass upon Andrew Jackson's presidential life'? We venture the 
 prediction that it will leave his name surrounded with the bright- 
 est radiated circlet of glory. Our faith in this approbatory decision 
 of posterity, rests upon one single fact, and that is, that in his pre- 
 sidential as in his military life, he was animated by the pure spirit 
 of republicanism. The institutions of his country were his idol. 
 For their preservation and purity he laboured. To this labour he 
 brought all the enthusiasm of his energetic soul. He saw in the 
 institutions of the republic the means of developing the most ex- 
 cellent attributes of our nature. He viewed a republic as the only 
 government fit for man ; and he looked upon the one over which 
 he presided as the most perfect of all republics. To preserve it, to 
 exalt it, to render it prosperous and permanent ; this was the ardent 
 desire of his patriotic heart. This desire was his guide through the 
 eight years of his administration. Here is the foundation of our 
 faith. It was because this desire, this ardour, existed in him in its 
 fulness, that we believe posterity will pronounce an approbatory 
 judgment. 
 
 If we look at the particular acts of his administration, we find 
 among them many of very great importance and interest. There 
 was the subject of Internal Improvement, the charter of a National 
 Bank, the Distribution of the Surplus Revenue, Nullification, the 
 French Indemnity, and others. Altogether, they made up a series 
 of measures, such as had not been exceeded in magnitude since the 
 organization of our government. Not to enter into a detail of these 
 
288 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 presidential measures, look at one or two of them — Nullification, 
 and the French Indemnity, for example. What position did he 
 occupy, when Nullification threatened a dissolution of the Union? 
 He rallied to his support, the talent and political wisdom of all 
 parties. It was in his own native state, that the commotion 
 originated. The execution of the laws of the Union, threatened 
 serious collision with South Carolina — South Carolina, the land of 
 his birth — South Carolina, where in his boyish days, he was made 
 "prisoner of war." Yet, what did President Jackson do? In 
 language not to be misunderstood, he announced that the laws of 
 the Union should be executed. He issued his proclamation, ex- 
 planatory of our republican system. He requested peaceable ac- 
 quiescence in the laws of the government. Perfectly comprehend- 
 ing the origin and nature of our republican organization, he 
 hesitated not to declare, that nullification should hide its head. 
 Men believe:! that he would be as good as his word. The wise and 
 patriotic of the land came up to his help, and the Union was safe. 
 Here was the man. The nation saw that his heart and soul were 
 devoted to the preservation, and permanent greatness, of the institu- 
 tions of his country. Such earnestness, such energy, such singleness 
 of purpose, pointed him out as a man who had drunk deep of the 
 pure water of republican life. 
 
 Look at one measure more of his administration. Our citizens 
 had claims upon France, for spoliations of our commerce, committed 
 many years before Jackson was chosen to the presidential chair. 
 Careful of the interests of the people, he negotiated with the 
 French government, a treaty of indemnity. After the treaty was 
 ratified, the French government began to hesitate — to raise difficul- 
 ties, to delay paying the money, according to stipulation. What 
 did the president then do? Stand still and be trifled with? That 
 would have been neither President Jackson, nor General Jackson. 
 He demanded of the French government, direct compliance with 
 the treaty. He put an end to French trifling, as unceremoniously 
 as he had, in former times, put an end to Spanish trifling, in Florida. 
 His country saw his energy. His country approved his decisive 
 tone. France paid the cash, and the trouble ended. Here again, 
 was conduct, such as flows from bold, and fearless, and incorrupt 
 patriotism. The nation saw again the man, and felt that he was a 
 man after their own heart. In him, they saw the predominance 
 of that republican spirit which fired their own souls. A similar 
 energy and devotion to the permanent gre.-itness of his country, 
 characterized the other acts of his administration. Who will say, 
 that the judgment of posterity will not harmonize with the sentence 
 of approbation, which, by your presence here, you have this day 
 pronounced? Who will say that such a man lived unto himself? 
 
 Look, finally, at Andrew Jackson as a citizen. What is he there ? 
 
m'cartney's eulogy. 289 
 
 A republican indeed. Liberally educated, he understood his duties 
 in all his relations. As a citizen, he had a high reverence for the 
 laws of his country. He inculcated, by precept and example, a 
 due obedience to them. Look at him at New Orleans, after the 
 battle was ended. The enemy had departed. The country was 
 safe. Millions were rejoicing. He was the hero. In this hour of 
 triumph, he was brought by a civil process before a court, to 
 answer for alleged violations of municipal law, during his defence 
 of the city. He appeared. The citizens gathered into the court- 
 room. The judge announced, that he had violated the laws of the 
 land. The crowd murmured. The judge hesitated ; feared to 
 pronounce his sentence. " Fear not," said the general, " fear not, 
 your honour, the same arm which repelled the invasions of the 
 enemy, will protect the deliberations of this court." He waved 
 his hand, and the multitude, like the mountain warriors of Roderick 
 Dhu, obeyed the signal. Here was submission to a penalty, out of 
 reverence for law and order. Here was the genuine republican 
 citizen. Fearless and bold in the field, he paid his respects to the 
 majesty of the laws of his country. Soldiers ! imitate Andrew 
 Jackson in the field, and Andrew Jackson in the court-room at 
 Orleans, and our republic will endure 
 
 " Till suns shall set, and rise no more." 
 
 But why multiply examples, confirmatory of the truth, that 
 Andrew Jackson was, in private life, a very proper man, a pure 
 republican citizen. By a pure republican citizen, I mean a man 
 imbued with a spirit that harmonizes with republican institutions, 
 which works in them, which sustains, and which would sustain them, 
 through all generations of men. That Andrew Jackson was such a 
 citizen, is shown by the doings of his life. Such was the soldier, 
 the statesman, and the citizen, who has been gathered to his 
 fathers. 
 
 In what age did he live? For half a century he mingled in the 
 affairs of the world. And where, in all the records of all history, 
 is to be found a half century in which the human race made 
 mightier movements. In this half century occurred the formation 
 and dissolution of European republics, the frightful commotions 
 which carried the eagles of France all over the continent, the at- 
 tempts at democratic government, the attempts at imperial govern- 
 ment, and the triumph of our republican system. Through this 
 living, moving, half century, lived Andrew Jackson. How much 
 of its life, how much of its real spirit found a home in his bosom'? 
 Let the honours freely bestowed by an admiring people answer. 
 Such honours spontaneously given point to an excellence that has 
 a monument more durable than brass. The Persians, for successive 
 generations, adored the very name of their conquered Alexander 
 25 
 
290 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 the Great. What does that signify ? It points unerringly to hira 
 as a man possessing excellencies of great estimation in the eyes of 
 a Persian. The French continue to revere the very name of Na- 
 poleon. What does that signify ? It points unerringly to him as 
 the imbodiment of certain excellencies highlv valued through the 
 French nation. We likewise honoured the father of his country 
 while living. When dead the whole country is his monument. 
 What does that signify? It points to him as a man who entered 
 with all his talents, and soul, and heart, into the great movement 
 with which America moved. In like manner, the national honours 
 paid to Andrew Jackson, point him out as a man who lived and 
 moved, and had his being under the influence of that spirit which 
 pervaded his beloved country. What was the great peculiar move- 
 ment in human affairs which marked the age in which he lived? 
 The movement was towards the building up of republicanism in 
 government. Our own country was the place where this move- 
 ment produced its most permanent results. Kings had tried to plant 
 and govern colonies in North America, but they failed in the at- 
 tempt. Great corporations had tried to plant and govern colonies 
 in North America ; they too failed. Feudal nobles had tried to 
 plant and govern colonies in North America; they too failed. The 
 people, the masses, then came up to the work, and North America 
 became the home of republican institutions. When Andrew Jack- 
 son was born, in 1767, this movement of the masses was here al- 
 ready begun. The whole country, like old ocean, moved in its 
 lowest bed in the cause of free, democratic political organization. 
 
 This cause succeeded here. Republicanism became ingrained 
 into the very staple and essence of our political being. It became 
 inwrought into the whole frame-work of our national organization. 
 The picture on the shield of Minerva was so deeply engraved that 
 it could not be erased without destroying the shield itself. Repub- 
 licanism has been so inwrought into our political and social system 
 that it could not be plucked out without tearing to pieces the sys- 
 tem itself. To preserve, defend, perfect, and perpetuate these re- 
 publican institutions, has, from the nation's birth-day to the present 
 hour, been the great work of North America. His share in this 
 work crowned Andrew Jackson with all his laurels. 
 
 It would be idle to seek elsewhere for his title to a country's 
 gratitude and praise. Other qualities, some good, others blame- 
 worthy, he possessed in common with mankind. For these his 
 country sits not in judgment upon him. Let it not, however, be 
 supposed that his merit is lessened by representing that it springs 
 ;ilone from his protection and promotion of republican institutions. 
 For grant that the human race is advancing to a higher perfection 
 of its nature. The establishment of democratic government, we 
 believe to be one of the system of agencies by which the energies 
 
m'cartney's eulogy. 291 
 
 and talents of the race are to be more fully developed. It is a 
 means of moral discipline. Andrew Jackson, therefore, by his de- 
 votion to republican institutions, was devoted to the advancement 
 and moral elevation of mankind. 
 
 The body of the statesman and hero has been consigned 
 
 -"To the dust, 
 
 His good sword to rust, 
 
 His soul is with the saints, we trust." 
 
 The heart loves to sympathise with such a man in all that relates 
 to him. In his pleasant abode at the Hermitage he enjoyed the 
 tranquillity of domestic life. Among neighbours he was a most 
 neighbourly man. To all who visited him he was a most hospita- 
 ble man. 
 
 In the latter part of his life he connected himself with the Pres- 
 byterian church in his vicinity, and acknowledged, by profession 
 and practice, the power of religion. He seemed in the evening 
 of life to open his eyes on more magnificent visions. He looked 
 upon the republican institutions of his country, and saw in them 
 not the end nor the highest good of man. He saw in them the 
 means of more fully developing the intellectual and moral life of 
 humanity. He saw in them the means of a higher civilization, 
 and looking farther on he saw this higher civilization linking in 
 with Christianity, and becoming animated with the pure life of the 
 gospel. He seemed to see what the individual and the race would 
 become if all would drink of the pure river of the water of life, which 
 flows from the throne of God and of the Lamb. He fixed the eye 
 of faith upon the Redeemer of the World, looked forward to a 
 purer state of being, and troubled not himself about the theological 
 discovery of 1844, that there is no resurrection of the body. But 
 full of faith, full of heavenly hope, conscious that he had lived not 
 unto himself, he closed his eyes on the Lord's day, June the 8th, 
 1845. He retired like one who, having, laboured through a long 
 toilsome day, when evening comes, 
 
 "Wraps the drapery of his couch 
 
 About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams." 
 
EULOGY 
 
 DELIVERED AT NATCHEZ, MISS., JULY 12, 1845, 
 
 BV 
 
 Dr. SAMUEL A. CARTWRIGHT 
 
 The ends of living having been fulfilled, our beloved Andrew 
 Jackson, on the 8th of June last, closed his earthly career. No 
 age will come so ignorant or unjust as not to see and own his 
 efficient agency in promoting the honour and glory of his country. 
 " No age will come when he will appear less than he is in the his- 
 tory of America." 
 
 Born on the 15th of March, 1767, in Waxhaw Settlement, South 
 Carolina, at the early age of thirteen, he took a part in the Revo- 
 lutionary war. His life affords proof that it was a gift of Provi- 
 dence, being miraculously preserved until the great object of 
 living had ceased. His death also affords a strong proof that Pro- 
 vidence smiles on our country's benefactors. Washington and 
 Jackson, living together in the pages of American history and 
 in the hearts of their countrymen, are not separated in time and in 
 eternity. To their country they live, and live for ever. Dying, 
 they have both left the world a light. Bright examples of Chris- 
 tianity, united with the greatest heroism and patriotism. 
 
 Most sensibly do I feel every way unqualified to do justice, on 
 the present occasion, to the memory of our glorious Jackson, save 
 only in a strong and abiding love and admiration for his character; 
 and having treasured up his noble deeds in my memory, impressed 
 there as their recital came warm from the hearts of some of his 
 nearest and dearest friends. Should I dwell on those actions and 
 achievements, which are well known to all the world, I would 
 only be a lame imitator of what a thousand presses and a thousand 
 orators have already proclaimed in strains far surpassing any thing 
 I could hope to reach. Rather let it be my humbler task to call 
 to mind those occurrences in the great hero's life which more par- 
 ticularly connected him with the people of Mississippi. 
 
 (292} 
 
cartwkight's eulogy. 293 
 
 Natchez, and Adams county, was the theatre of a most remarka- 
 ble event in General Jackson's life, worthy of particular study and 
 remembrance in all time to come. In the year 1812, after the 
 disasters on the Canada frontier, General Jackson hoisted the 
 standard of liberty in his own neighbourhood, and soon had twenty- 
 five hundred brave fellows around it. He wrote to the secretary 
 of war, that he and his troops, were at the service of the govern- 
 ment, and "were ready to go where duty and danger called them." 
 The secretary ordered him to Natchez. On the 7th of January, 
 1813, they left Nashville in flat-boats, breaking their way through 
 the ice, in the Cumberland, and the Ohio, and soon arrived in 
 Natchez. He pitched his camp in this vicinity, four miles distant, 
 on what is now Mr. M'Cullough's plantation. Here, while occu- 
 pied in disciplining and drilling his troops, he received orders to 
 disband them, and deliver every article of public property to 
 General Wilkinson, of the regular service. He refused to obey the 
 order, because he could not obey it without violating a higher 
 authority, than any that mortal man can give — his moral obligations. 
 He had pledged the faith and honour of a soldier, to his men, to 
 their mothers, and to their wives, before he took them from home, 
 that he would act as a father towards them, and would see them all 
 safely back, that did not gloriously fall in the service of their 
 country. To leave one hundred and fifty of his men on the sick 
 list, fifty-six not able to raise their heads, and the balance of his 
 troops, without money, or means to defray their expenses home, 
 thus forcing them to enlist in the regular service against their will, 
 would, he thought, be a moral delinquency on his part, which 
 nothing could excuse. 
 
 Wilkinson tried to terrify him, and turn him from his purpose, 
 by admonishing him of the " awful and dangerous responsibility 
 of an officer refusing to obey the orders of his superior/' But 
 Andrew Jackson was thinking of the duty he owed to his troops, not 
 of any personal consequences to himself. He had never been in 
 military service before. To begin his military career, by refusing 
 to obey the orders of the secretary of war, would, he knew, be a 
 death-blow to his ambition, as an officer under the government; but 
 he was more ambitious of fulfilling his promise, and keeping his 
 word, than of trying to ingratiate himself into the good opinion of 
 the government. Hence, in the outset of life as a military man, 
 he fearlessly met the frowns of Wilkinson and the secretary of war, 
 for the peace of an approving conscience. He told Wilkinson that 
 he " had promised to take the troops back, and back he would 
 take them, and abide the consequences." He also threatened to 
 drum any recruiting officer out of his camp, who should come 
 among his men to decoy any of them into the regular service, until 
 he got them home. He was their protector, and he would not let 
 25* 
 
294- 
 
 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 them be forced by their necessities to enlist. The quarter-master 
 refused the necessary supply of wagons, to transport the sick. 
 General Jackson gave up his own horses to them, borrowed on his 
 own account, five thousand dollars, of a merchant in Natchez, to 
 defray the expenses of the troops, and went on foot with the com- 
 mon soldier, through the wilderness to Nashville. Arrived there, 
 he wrote to the secretary of war, that, although he had refused to 
 obey his orders, to disband his army at Natchez, it was not from 
 any disposition on his part to be disobedient to the higher authority ; 
 that he considered such obedience most binding, in all cases not 
 plainly and palpably conflicting with higher, and more sacred 
 duties, as his late order did ; but that, if he would order him to 
 Canada, he promised, not only to obey the order cheerfully, but to 
 try and plant the banner of his country, on the British forts at 
 Maiden. 
 
 Fortunately, for us of the South, the secretary did not accept 
 of his services. General Jackson's conduct here, in 1813, if well 
 studied, gives the key to his whole character. What he believed 
 to be his first duty, he would always perform, regardless of personal 
 consequences to himself. As it was his first duty to protect the 
 young men entrusted to his charge, and to see them safely home, sc 
 likewise, when entrusted with the defence of this south-western 
 country, his first duty, in his estimation, was to protect the inhabi- 
 tants from the enemy. He did not believe that he was sent here 
 to quibble, argue, or discuss, mooted points of constitutional law, 
 or the law of nations, but to save New Orleans from seizure by the 
 enemy, and the inhabitants from a brutal soldiery. To defend the 
 country, was his first duty, and if, in the discharge of this high 
 duty, he should do anything, not warranted by the constitution, or 
 in violation of the laws, he stood ready to pay the penalty. What 
 though Andrew Jackson suffers, is fined, or imprisoned, provided 
 he drives back the British invaders, and rescues the women and 
 children of the Mississippi territory, from Britain's savage ally, of 
 the tomahawk and scalping-knife. Love of country filled his whole 
 heart, and in bending all his energies to the defence of the people, 
 who looked to him for protection, he seems never to have thought 
 of Andrew Jackson. Self, and all considerations connected with 
 self, were banished from his bosom, and his country, one, and in- 
 divisible, filled and swelled his whole soul. Acting on the prin- 
 ciple, that he belonged to his country, and should freely risk health, 
 fame, fortune, life, everything, in its defence, induced many per- 
 sons to misunderstand the man, and to suppose, that he was acting 
 on the principle of Cresar, Napoleon, and other tyrants — as if the 
 country belonged to him, and not he to the country. His submis- 
 sion, however, to the civil authority, when all danger was over, 
 and his bowing, in meekness, to the decision of Judge Hall, and 
 
cartwright's eulogy. 295 
 
 cheerfully paying the fine, imposed upon him for alleged violation of 
 law, is the best proof in the world, that he was not a tyrant, come 
 to destroy liberty, but a whole souled-patriot, come to defend it, 
 and ready, if need be, like a martyr, to suffer in its cause. He 
 was patriotism personified. 
 
 One among the many instances wherein his countrymen have 
 not been unanimous in doing justice to General Jackson's character 
 and services, his invasion of Florida, and taking of Pensacola, in 
 1814, stands conspicuous. Mr. Adams has given an elaborate de- 
 fence of his conduct on that occasion. Nevertheless, it is still 
 viewed by a respectable minority as an unwarrantable stretch of 
 power, and as a dangerous example — more especially as General 
 Jackson wrote to the government, asking for permission, and the 
 government did not choose to reply. As nearly a tenth of his 
 whole army, on that occasion, was composed of Mississinpians, a 
 portion of whom are still living, and present in this vast assem- 
 blage, here congregated in honour of his memory, it may not be 
 unappropriate to call to mind a few of the facts and circumstances, 
 in justification of the invasion, in addition to those adduced by Mr. 
 Adams, while the witnesses are still living to substantiate them. 
 General Jackson had authority to invade Florida, at least on au- 
 thority which no Mississippian can gainsay. It was written in the 
 blood of Mississippi, of her women and children, and more particu- 
 larly, in that of a gallant officer of this our city of Natchez. 
 
 General Jackson had frequently complained to the governor of 
 Pensacola, by repeated letters and special messengers, of his viola- 
 tion of the laws of nations, for permitting that town to be used as 
 a rallying point of the enemies of the United States, both British 
 and Indians. One of the messengers whom he had sent to Pensa- 
 cola, Captain Gordon, a most gallant officer, reported that he saw 
 in Pensacola and its vicinity, one hundred and fifty British officers, 
 a park of artillery, and about five hundred Indians, dressed in Bri- 
 tish uniform, and under drill by British officers, and that the incen- 
 diary, Colonel Nichols, had taken up his quarters at the governor's. 
 But to make assurance doubly sure, our townsman, Lieutenant Mur- 
 ry, of the Adams County Guards, with twenty-five men, was sent 
 to reconnoitre Pensacola and the Barrancas, to report the truth of 
 the matter. They saw seven British armed vessels in the bay, and 
 the British Jack hoisted by the side of the Spanish flag, on the 
 walls of the Barrancas. Returning, within three miles of Pensa- 
 cola an Indian warrior started up, threw up his hands in token of 
 peace, but soon picked an opportunity, and gave Lieutenant Murry 
 a mortal wound. The report of the Indian's rifle was answered 
 from the fort and the town, and the detachment had to hasten on- 
 wards to avoid capture. The desperate savage, who, like the rest 
 of the Creeks, had been inflamed to madness, by such incendiaries 
 
296 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 as Nichols and Woodbine, was despatched on the spot, and Lieu- 
 tenant Murry was put on horseback, and the troop proceeded. It 
 had gone but a short distance, when it was perceived that the lieu- 
 tenant was dead. In full hearing of the whoops, yells, and firing, 
 indicating a pursuit, the troop halted at a little hole in the earth, 
 or ravine, and laid the body of our townsman therein, " with his 
 martial cloak around him ;" a little earth and leaves were hastily 
 thrown over his remains, our worthy fellow-citizen, Mr. Robert 
 Dunbar, assisting in the mournful obsequies, and speedily they 
 pushed forward to the American camp. 
 
 Arrived there, as soon as General Jackson found that the detach- 
 ment had lost its leader, and heard the circumstances of his death, 
 how he was treacherously murdered on the neutral territory by a 
 desperate savage, and that hundreds of such savages were fed and 
 fostered by the Spanish authorities, and drilled and armed by Bri- 
 tish officers, " he gave orders to march on Pensacola." In a few 
 days thereafter he was before the city — when our gallant army 
 came to the line, separating the United States from Florida, it did 
 not stop to chatter about constitutional law, nor to demand of their 
 general his authority for crossing. They all saw his authority. It 
 was written in letters of blood, and the fresh blood of a fellow-sol- 
 dier, shed on the neutral territory, was crying from the ground for 
 vengeance. " When we came within a mile," says General Jack- 
 son, in one of his despatches, " we were in full view. Never was 
 my pride more heightened, than in viewing the uniform firmness 
 of my troops, and with that undaunted courage they advanced, 
 with a strong fort ready to assail them on the right, and seven Bri- 
 tish armed vessels on the left, strong block-houses and batteries of 
 cannon on their front, but with unshaken firmness they entered the 
 town." They stormed the batteries at the point of the bayonet, 
 soon had possession of the place, and the governor suing for mercy 
 at their feet. General Jackson required a surrender of the forts. 
 The governor promised to surrender them, if a force were dis- 
 played before them. The Mississippi Dragoons were ordered to 
 display before one of the forts, and the treacherous garrison fired 
 on them. The cannon was then ordered up and pointed at the fort, 
 and it surrendered. General Jackson, under the rules of war, 
 might have put the garrison to the sword, but he was a tendpr- 
 hearted and humane man, whenever his country's interest did not 
 require him to be hard-hearted and severe. 
 
 In the mean time the British vessels in the bay were annoying 
 our army with their guns, anchored off, as they supposed, in safety 
 from the American fire. But to their great astonishment they saw 
 two pieces of heavy cannon move down upon the beach, where 
 open, exposed, and uncovered, Lieutenant McCall gave them a fire 
 so brisk and well aimed, as soon to drive the flotilla off. 
 
cartwright's eulogy. 297 
 
 As yet, the Barrancas and the adjacent fortresses, ten or fifteen 
 miles west of Pensacola, were in the possesssion of the British. 
 General Jackson had got everything ready to take the Barrancas 
 by storm. But the British blew up the forts and retreated from 
 the bay. Their Indian allies, being abandoned, fled to the Appala- 
 chicola. Major Blue was sent to pursue them, and to break up a 
 depot of supplies the enemy had provided for them there. 
 
 Two days after entering Pensacola, General Jackson restored it 
 to Governor Manrequez, and withdrew his troops, informing the 
 governor that he held himself responsible for any injury that the 
 public or private property of the Spaniards had sustained by the 
 American troops. The Spaniards lost the Barrancas and the ad- 
 jacent fortress, by their friends, the British, who also took with 
 them three or four hundred of the Spaniard's negroes; but they lost 
 not a cent's worth of property by the Americans. The British, 
 mistaking General Jackson's character, and supposing him to be a 
 lawless invader, coming not only to seize, but to hold the province, 
 determined to deprive him of the Barrancas, and the neighbouring 
 fortresses, and hence blew them up. They thus unconsciously 
 played into the hands of General Jackson, from ignorance of his 
 character. The British, in blowing up the forts of a neutral power, 
 themselves violated the laws of nations, gained the ill will of their 
 late friends, the Spaniards, deprived themselves and their savage 
 allies of protection and shelter in Florida, and thus accomplished 
 every object, that General Jackson had in view, by the very means 
 used to counteract his supposed designs. The blows levelled against 
 the ideal tyrant, were only so many blows to assist the real patriot. 
 
 One of the principal reasons why General Jackson was never 
 conquered in the field, and no matter what the odds against him, 
 never lost a battle, and never failed, as a statesman, to carry out 
 every measure he recommended, was owing to his opponents mis- 
 understanding him, and directing all their energies against an ima- 
 ginary personage, while he, with bosom bare, and eye fixed on 
 God and his country, was approaching his object, unharmed by the 
 blows which fell thick and heavy on some imaginary character 
 that had been mistaken for him. Thus, at Emuckfaw, the Indians, 
 mistaking the character of the man they had to deal with, planned 
 an attack against a sleepy-headed general, ignorant of the woods, 
 and unconscious of danger, intending to surprise him in the night, 
 and utterly exterminate his little army. But he seized hold of the 
 very means, which he foresaw that the enemy were about to use 
 against him, and gained a glorious victory. 
 
 With a little army of raw recruits, wearied with long marches, 
 with nothing but parched corn to eat, General Jackson found him- 
 self surrounded by nearly the whole nation of Creek Indians, lying 
 in three bodies near the Emuckfaw Creek. So far from retreating, 
 
298 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 he boldly encamped for the night, and lit up fires, as if he appre- 
 hended no danger ; the Indians supposing that they would have 
 nothing to do but to surprise him and cut off his men by the light 
 of their own fires, while they stood securely in the dark. A little 
 before day, they made the attack, but instead of surprising General 
 Jackson, he surprised them by a well-aimed and most destructive 
 fire. To their utter astonishment, General Jackson had, on this 
 great emergency, used darkness as a mantle to cover his men from 
 their view, and had, at the same time, made a circle of light out- 
 side of his camp to expose the enemy. All this he effected by 
 camp-fires, built just far enough beyond the hollow square, on which 
 he formed his little army, as to compel the Indians, as soon as they 
 got in good rifle range, to come within the circle of light, where 
 blinking, they could see nothing, while the lurid glare of light en- 
 circling the camp exposed their bodies, like so many red targets, 
 to the American rifle from the dark circle within, where stood the 
 great hero and his little band, with the imponderable elements of 
 light and darkness pressed into his service to make him equal to the 
 enemy. 
 
 When morning came, so many hundreds of the bravest Indian 
 warriors had fallen, that the hero was enabled to maintain his 
 ground against the remainder. They, however, fought him nearly 
 the whole day, and two days afterwards they came very near de- 
 feating him, owing to a panic that seized the troops on being at- 
 tacked while crossing Ennotochopco Creek. A few men alone 
 stood firm. Carroll was left with only twenty men. Armstrong, 
 of the artillery, had fallen, badly wounded. Captain Quarles, Bird, 
 Evans, and Captain Hamilton lay dead at his side. Hamilton's 
 father and his two sons, Russell, of the spies, and his three sons, 
 the venerable Judge Cocke, of Columbus, and some few young 
 men, maintained the fight around the cannon, until General Jack- 
 son could form his panic-stricken army, recross the creek, and 
 come to their aid. The gallant Coffee, though wounded through 
 the body two days before, sprang from the litter on which he was 
 carried, mounted his horse, and assisted greatly in restoring order 
 — General Jackson pointing at General Coffee and telling his men 
 "We'll whip them, the dead have risen and come to our aid." 
 Armstrong, though wounded, and supposed to be dead, called out 
 from the heaps of dead bodies around him — " Save the gun." This 
 is the individual to whom General Jackson left his sword. 
 
 The English, as well as some of our own countrymen, are very 
 prone to attribute too much to cotton bales, in making General Jack- 
 son a great man, and enabling him to triumph over the veteran 
 soldiers of Wellington. Still they confess that they cannot under- 
 stand why troops, that in Spain scaled forts and ramparts of solid 
 rock forty feet high, strongly garrisoned and mounted with heavy 
 
cartwright's eulogy. 299 
 
 guns, should not have been able to leap over a breastwork of a few- 
 cotton bales at New Orleans. If they will read the light and dark- 
 ness battle at Emuckfaw, and the battle of Ennotochopco, Talle- 
 dega, Talleshatche, and the Horseshoe, they will understand it. 
 At all those places, General Jackson met and subdued an enemy, 
 native born sons of the American forest, so brave, desperate, and 
 ferocious, that his subsequent battles with the British were only 
 play in comparison to his hard fighting with desperate and well- 
 armed savages in their own wilderness. 
 
 It is too common to look upon his Indian battles as mere skir- 
 mishes in comparison to the great battle of New Orleans, on the 
 8th of January. Yet, at the Horseshoe, about as many Indian 
 warriors were killed as British soldiers on the 8th of January. The 
 Indians were also strongly fortified, were well armed, and fought 
 more desperately than any British soldiers ever did. Let it also 
 be remembered, that on the 23d of December, there were no cotton 
 bales between the few regulars, militia, and volunteers, under Ge- 
 neral Jackson, and the flower of Wellington's troops ; so far from 
 it, several times during the battle, in open field, the British troops, 
 though superior in numbers, retreated behind ditches and fences for 
 shelter, and were as many times driven from their position by the 
 Americans charging them in their fastnesses, until they made the 
 boastful conquerors of Europe give ground about a mile. 
 
 Are these things so? There are some in this assembly who know 
 that they are so. One in particular is here* present, who defended 
 the American artillery, at the battle of the 23d December, in open 
 field, against, I think, no less than three several charges made 
 against it by the veritable wall-sealers, the pride and boast of the 
 British army. The remnant of the Natchez and Adams county 
 soldiers is here, whose gallantry at New Orleans- on the 8th, id 
 promptly crossing the river to meet the forces that were in pursuit 
 of Morgan, won for them the appellative of " honourable and con- 
 spicuous."! A portion of the remnant of the Mississippi dragoons 
 are here, whom General Jackson, on the plains of New Orleans, 
 pronounced to be ''the glory of one army and the admiration of 
 the other." (See Niles's Register, vol. vii. p. 404.) One at least 
 of those brave tars is here,J who fought on the 8th of January, 
 under Commodore Patterson, as gallantly at New Orleans as he had 
 before done under Decatur, at Tripoli. But, alas! I see none of 
 Lieutenant Jones's men here, who with five boats against forty-three, 
 and one hundred and eighty-two men against twelve hundred, 
 twice repulsed the enemy, in Lake Borgne, in attempting to board; 
 with immense destruction sunk two of his boats, one of them car- 
 
 * Col. H. Chotard. 
 
 t Letter of General Jackson to Colonel J. C. Wilkins, their captain. 
 
 X Captain J. B. Nevitt, of the American tars. 
 
300 
 
 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 rying down one hundred and eighty of the enemy, and never sur- 
 rendered, until their officers were cut down and themselves over- 
 powered hy superior numbers — thus preserving unsullied the 
 American flag on the sea. 
 
 It is not to inflate national vanity or to swell a light and empty 
 feeling of self-importance in our people, that I call to mind those 
 noble exploits of by-gone times. The hero under whose eye and 
 direction they were performed is no more; and we are here assem- 
 bled, with a small remnant of his gallant army amongst us. The 
 frosts of thirty winters have whitened their locks since those ex- 
 ploits, cooling ambition and the fire of youth. They are not before 
 the public for any office. My object is not to flatter them, though 
 they deserve all praise ; nor is it to draw an invidious distinction 
 between the older settlements and the newly-settled portions of 
 Mississippi. It is well known that a large portion of General Jack- 
 son's Tennessee riflemen have found happy homes in that portion 
 of Mississippi lately acquired from the Indians; and there is not a 
 state iji the Union, not even Tennessee, which has a larger propor- 
 tion of his old soldiers in it than our state of Mississippi. Allusion, 
 therefore, has been made to their noble deeds, to induce the present 
 and rising generation, as well as all emigrants to our state, come 
 from what quarter they may, to look back upon our veterans and 
 their noble chief for lights and examples in all questions touching 
 the well-earned glory, honour, and fame of Mississippi in particu- 
 lar and the United States in general. 
 
 America is bound up in fortune and fate with the great interests 
 of free government, religious toleration, common-school instruction, 
 and in every thing tending to the universal diffusion of knowledge, 
 liberty, and happiness among the masses of the people. We have 
 heard the immortal words of our great chief, "Extend ike area of 
 freedom." To carry out that design, we must cherish the virtues 
 and principles of our fathers. The diffusion of knowledge, the 
 cultivation of the moral virtues, encouragement to the industry of 
 our mechanics, manufacturers, artisans, and those engaged in com- 
 merce and agriculture, and the maintenance of an unsullied reputa- 
 tion before the world, will, if we look back upon the whole life of 
 him whose memory we this day celebrate, be found no less essen- 
 tial, in his estimation, in the great work of "extending the area 
 of freedom," than our late territorial acquisitions. 
 
 It is good to look back occasionally to see what we were and to 
 see how much has been done for us, that we may the better under- 
 stand what it becomes us to do. In 1813, no American freemen 
 were residing in the South-west, except a few living in little scol- 
 lops cut out of an immense wilderness filled with hostile savages. 
 Our whole numbers, put together in all the country now composing 
 the three states of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, did not 
 
cartwright's eulogy. 301 
 
 amount, according to the census of 1810, to as many as 150,000 
 souls, nearly half of whom were negroes. Adams county alone 
 contained one-seventh part of the whole population of the territory 
 now constituting the states of Alabama and Mississippi. The 
 population of Louisiana was but 76,000. The whole country south 
 of Kentucky and the Carolinas, from the Atlantic on the east to 
 the western limits of Louisiana and to the Gulf of Mexico and the 
 American boundary line south, did not contain as many inhabit- 
 ants, including Georgia, as Georgia alone now contains. Jt now 
 contains more than the whole United States in the days of the Re- 
 volution. 
 
 Georgia was one of the original thirteen states, and ceded the 
 territory now constituting Alabama and Mississippi, on condition 
 that the United States would remove the Indians from be}'ond her 
 present limits. It was not until General Jackson's administration, 
 that the United States fulfilled its stipulations with Georgia. The 
 fairest and largest portion of that state remained a savage wilder- 
 ness from the days of the Revolution to late in General Jackson's 
 presidential term. A large part of Tennessee and a good portion 
 of Kentucky, nearly the whole of Alabama, and more than three- 
 fourths of Mississippi, in I8l3, was occupied by Indians, most of 
 whom were bitterly hostile, and continued to be thus occupied 
 until General Jackson came into power. 
 
 In 1813, our country was engaged in war with the most formi- 
 dable power of Europe — a power which had not only excited the 
 savages on our northern border to raise the tomahawk against us, 
 but had sent missionary fire-brands, Tecumseh, Colonel Nichols, 
 Woodbine, and others, to inflame our southern Indians to hostility, 
 and even to stir up our negroes. 
 
 Late in the year 1813, the Indians began their massacres in good 
 earnest. All along the Tennessee line, and the Georgia frontier, 
 we began to hear of families butchered by the Indians, the men 
 shot down, and children butchered, and torn to pieces with dogs, in 
 view of their mothers. Even on Duck River, scarcely a day's 
 ride from Nashville, such scenes are heard of. At length, about 
 the 1st of September, 1813, three huudred of our Mississippians, 
 including men, women, and children, were butchered and burnt at 
 Fort Mims — the Indians dancing around the houses on fire, and 
 with savage joy, beholding our men dead in the basement, and the 
 women and children, in the upper story, encircled in the lambent 
 flames — the very Indians whom we had, for twenty years or more, 
 been trying, at great expense, to civilize and christianize. 
 
 There was then living on the banks of the Cumberland, an in- 
 dividual whom the world knew not of. He had lately been unfor- 
 tunate in mercantile business, sold his plantation, paid his debts, and 
 built a cabin in sight of the plantation sold, and went to work to 
 26 
 
302 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 retrieve his fortune — setting an example of industry, method, and 
 economy, worthy to be followed by all agriculturists. He wielded 
 the axe, guided the plough, and made, with his own hands, the 
 most of his farming utensils — as nature had made him a mechanic, 
 besides making him a statesman and soldier. 
 
 But what brought him to the Cumberland. He visited the place, 
 for the first time, in 1789, while the people were living in stations, 
 to avoid the Indians, the chief station being where Nashville now 
 is. He found, among the good and honest people there, a club of 
 lawless characters, who had combined together to put down law, 
 and order, and evade the payment of their just debts. For this 
 purpose, they had got the resident lawyer in their interest, and the 
 creditors had no one to appear for them. 
 
 They engaged the young Jonesborough lawyer to undertake their 
 cause. The club of desperadoes, finding that he was not deterred 
 from the undertaking by their threats of vengeance, taunted him 
 with being anon-resident, coming among them only as an itinerant, 
 under the protection of the courts. That taunt, it is said, was the 
 true cause of his leaving Jonesborough, and settling at the Nashville 
 station. The lawless characters pitched their bullies against him, 
 yet he maintained his ground against the whole of them. Wash- 
 ington, the very next year after his removal to Nashville, appointed 
 him United States attorney, for the whole district south of the 
 Ohio. How far, the stand he took in favour of law, induced 
 Washington to give him the preference over the older lawyers of 
 the district, history is silent. At length, having made a fortune, he 
 retired to a farm, ten miles from Nashville, abandoned the law, and 
 commenced farming and merchandising. Failing in the latter, he 
 sold his farm, paid his debts, and built him a log-cabin on the Cum- 
 berland, and by economy and industry, had again, by the year 1813, 
 accumulated a comfortable independence. 
 
 On this farm, he was residing, when news of the massacre 
 of the people of the Mississippi territory, by the Creek Indians, 
 at Fort Mims, reached him. He raised his eyes to Heaven, 
 as if in prayer, and in his own strong language, said, "Let them 
 repent it in bitterness and tears. Let the torch, which they have 
 lighted, blaze in the heart of their own country." He, forthwith, 
 appealed to the patriotism of his country, and soon found himself 
 at the head of an army, bending his footsteps towards the Mississippi 
 territory, without money, provisions, or camp equipage. 
 
 In the meantime, the people of the Mississippi territory were in 
 utter consternation, the few inhabitants, in what are now our sea- 
 shore counties, had fled to the islands in the Gulf of Mexico. The 
 settlers on the Tombigbee, and Alabama, sought refuge in Mobile, 
 and did not consider themselves safe there. Our eastern counties, 
 poured in their population upon Natchez, and Adams county, 
 
cartwright's eulogy. 303 
 
 coming here, as they supposed, to make their last stand against the 
 numerous hordes of Indians of the wide world of wilderness around. 
 They breathed a little freer, on hearing that the Indians thought 
 there was not blood enough in Natchez, and Adams county, to satisfy 
 their thirst, that they wanted to drink deep and full, in the more 
 populous settlements in Tennessee, and were on their way there, 
 intending to give us a call on their return. 
 
 At length, in Marschalk's little newspaper, the oniy one in the 
 territory for a long time, a despatch appeared, dated November 4th, 
 1813, a little more than two months after the massacre at Fort 
 Mims. It began thus : — " We have retaliated for the destruction 
 of Fort Mims; one hundred and eighty-six of the enemy are dead 
 on the field, and about eighty taken prisoners.^ At the bottom 
 of the despatch, was a name, then unknown to fame, it was the 
 name of Andrew Jackson, his first introduction to the American 
 people as a soldier. While the people are wondering, if it were 
 possible that such good news could be true, and if this was the man 
 who had disobeyed orders at Natchez, another despatch arrived, 
 containing the particulars of the great battle of Talladega, fought a 
 week afterwards, giving the glorious news that two hundred and 
 ninety of the murderers of our citizens, at Fort Mims, were left 
 dead on the field — signed Andrew Jackson, his second appearance 
 before the American people. But then the bad news arrives, that 
 General Jackson is starving in the wilderness, deserted by his men, 
 and he, and they, are on their way home, eating acorns, for the 
 want of food. 
 
 Two months afterwards, he again introduces himself to the pub- 
 lic, the third time at the head of a new army, by a despatch, con- 
 taining an account of the three great battles fought at the Emuck- 
 faw, the hardest he ever fought. Again, he is forced to retire from 
 the enemy's country, for the want of supplies, and troops refusing 
 to serve longer. Yet, in less than two months more, he is again 
 in the heart of the enemy's country, with a newly raised army, and 
 fights the battle of the Horseshoe, or Tohopeka, killing eight hun- 
 dred warriors, and ends the war, as far as the Indians are concerned. 
 This battle was fought the latter part of March, 1814. 
 
 We next find him at Mobile, repairs Fort Boyer, which had been 
 abandoned, putting a garrison in it, under Major Lawrence, who 
 beat off ten times the number of British and Indians, who attacked 
 the fort in September, by sea and by land ; then at Pensacola, and on 
 the 1st of December, 1814, arrives, for the first time, in New Or- 
 leans, where he wound up the war in a blaze of glory, and immor- 
 talized his name. 
 
 General Jackson was not, as some suppose, a bigoted party man, 
 driving principles to extremes, for the sake of the principle, regardless 
 of its effects upon the country. He looked upon principles, as 
 
304 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 upon all human things, as finite, as having a terminus, like moun- 
 tain ridges, affording good, firm roads, for a greater or less distance, 
 but ending in precipices, or morasses, if pursued too far. When 
 on principle, he pursued it with ardour; his driving was like that 
 of Jehu ; it was furiously. It he went farther than some men 
 would think prudent, yet he knew when, and where, to stop in 
 safety. If he thought the safety of his country required it, he 
 would press the principles of either political party into his service. 
 Thus, when he believed that his native state had misunderstood, or 
 was pushing Jefferson's principles too far, he did not scruple to 
 throw all his weight on the opposite, or Hamiltonian principle. But 
 before doing so, he recommended, in his message, that measures be 
 taken to remove the grievances complained of. On the great 
 tariff question, he stood between the two extremes, with the word 
 "judicious," inscribed on his flag; not so little as to make us de- 
 pendent on Europe, yet not so great as to foster oppressive mo- 
 nopolies. 
 
 His letters to President Monroe did much to soften the asperity 
 of party feeling, which, in the war, a short time before, had run 
 so high as to make some men forget that they had a country to 
 defend. His country, his whole country, and nothing but his 
 country, was the corner-stone of Jackson's political creed. Unlike 
 Robespierre, who, in the French assembly, cried out, " Perish 
 France, and the colonies, but save the principle, or the party ;" 
 General Jackson would have exclaimed, " Perish principle, perish 
 party, but save the country." " The Union must be preserved," 
 not that the principle must be preserved, whether Jefferson's, or 
 anybody else's, but " The Union must be preserved." General 
 Jackson seems to have viewed principles and systems, in the same 
 light that Hippocrates, the father of physicians, viewed them in 
 medicine. This or that principle, system, or theory, to be acted 
 on, according to the circumstances of the case. The heating, the 
 cooling, the let alone, or the forcing; anything, to save the patient. 
 Pushing principles to the extremes, for the sake of the principle, 
 regardless of its effects, is what ruined the French republic. Boli- 
 var, in trying to be a greater patriot, and more of a republican, 
 than Washington, ruined his country. He pushed the principles 
 of liberty so far, as to apply it to the negroes of Colombia. Where 
 is Colombia ? Torn to pieces by factions, growing out of loose 
 or fanatical notions of liberty. Liberty, consistent with subordina- 
 tion, order, law, human happiness, and human improvement, seems 
 to have been the kind of liberty, and the only kind of liberty, that 
 Andrew Jackson, and, in fact, all of our Revolutionary fathers, 
 cared for, fought for, or wished to establish. 
 
 If he should be called a benefactor of mankind, who can make 
 two blades of grass grow where only one grew before, what are 
 
cartwright's eulogy. 305 
 
 we to think of our glorious Jackson ? Answer, ye two millions of 
 happy people, who have made the wilderness in Georgia, Tennes- 
 see, Alabama, and Mississippi, so lately the abode of ferocious sa- 
 vages, blossom as the rose. Ye, of the older settlements in Georgia, 
 Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, and Louisiana, what think 
 you of the man whose policy has put two millions (a number about 
 equal to the whole population of the United States, in 1776) of 
 friends and defenders in that very wilderness around you, so lately 
 filled with discontented savages, ready to fall upon you with the 
 tomahawk at the instigation of incendiaries, or whenever they found 
 you pressed by an enemy ? You are thankful, you are grateful for 
 the peace and security which Andrew Jackson has been instru- 
 mental in giving you, beyond what tongue can tell. As we pass 
 away, others will come to honour the memory, and bless the name 
 of Andrew Jackson. The two millions, now in the territory he so 
 lately acquired from the Indians, will ere long become four mil- 
 lions. As time rolls on, each generation will bring with it in- 
 creasing millions to swell the throng of Andrew Jackson's admirers, 
 and to gaze on his star in the galaxy of American patriots, the 
 brightest of all save one, our glorious Washington. Ere long, in- 
 numerable multitudes, towards the setting sun, will rise up to thank 
 him who brought them into the fold of the American Union, and 
 as they pass away, others more numerous will come to lisp his 
 praise, and to vie with the other patriots of this great empire of 
 republican freemen, in honouring the name of him whose memory 
 we this day celebrate. 
 
 In New Orleans General Jackson won a large portion of hi-, 
 worldly fame, by gaining a victory over the conquerors of Europe 
 and Napoleon; but here in Natchez, fifty-four years ago, a kind 
 Providence, that we blind mortals saw not, gave him a pilot in 
 pious woman's form, who showed him the way to gain the victory 
 over self, to conquer death, and he won a place in Heaven. 
 26* 
 
 "\ 
 
EULOGY 
 
 DELIVERED AT LANCASTER, OHIO, JULY 12, 1845, 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM IRVIN, Esq, 
 
 My Fellow-Citizens : — By the Providence of God, a grateful 
 people are called upon to pay the last sad tributes of respect to one 
 of its greatest benefactors. Andrew Jackson, the hero, the pa- 
 triot, and the sage, is no more. He has gone down to the tomb, 
 full of years and full of honours. How deeply enshrined he is in 
 the hearts of his countrymen, let the tributes that are now being 
 paid by a nation to his memory express. When we cease to feel 
 gratitude to those great men, who, by their courage in the field, 
 and wisdom in council, won for, and secured to us, the liberties we 
 possess, and the glorious institutions we now enjoy, then, indeed, 
 will we be unworthy of the name of freemen — unworthy of the 
 blessings conferred on us by our brave sires, and purchased by their 
 blood and treasure. Andrew Jackson was a patriot. Deep and 
 unfathomable was the love he bore for America, the land of his birth. 
 From early boyhood to green old age, he bore his life in his hand, 
 ever ready to offer it as a sacrifice on the altar of his country. 
 How proud ought we to be. both of the institutions which gave 
 birth to such deep love, and of the man. Sparta has long ceased 
 to exist ;. but so long as time endures, will the love of country, that 
 prompted Leonidas and his brave compatriots, to offer themselves 
 as living sacrifices for the country's safety, be cherished and re- 
 membered in the hearts of men. The love which Leonidas bore 
 for Sparta, was not greater than that which Jackson bore for Ame- 
 rica. He, in whose breast there is a spark of patriotic fire, will 
 feel a pleasure and a pride in doing justice to such exalted worth, 
 no matter to what sect or party he may belong, — and, as he ap- 
 proaches to the grave, enmity must be swallowed up in grief for 
 the death of the patriotic chief. 
 
 But tbou :h he has gone, he has left behind him the record of 
 
 (806) 
 
jrvin's eulogy. 307 
 
 his virtues and his worth ; and as long as time endures, and our in- 
 stitutions last, the American, as he reads the pages of history, 
 whereon are spread out the noble principles by which he was go- 
 verned, and the incidents and achievements of his romantic and 
 adventurous life, will exclaim with pride — " he was my country- 
 man !" 
 
 Yes, my fellow-citizens, — living, he was ever ready to serve us, 
 and dead, he has left to us as rich a legacy as man ever left to a 
 grateful people. His virtues have won for him a place in the tem- 
 ple of fame with the immortal Washington. There, side by side, 
 let them stand, — and as our youth grow up from generation to 
 generation, and gaze upon them, oh, may they learn from them 
 the lesson, how in war to be heroes, in peace statesmen and patriots, 
 and plain and simple republicans always. 
 
 Time will not permit me to take more than a glimpse at the his- 
 tory of Andrew Jackson. The family from which he sprung, were 
 at an early period emigrants from Scotland to Ireland. Andrew 
 Jackson, the father of General Jackson, resided in Ulster county, 
 in Ireland. Two sons were born unto him there, Hugh and Ro- 
 bert. Though of the Presbyterian faith, the iron hand of England's 
 despotism bore as heavy on him as on his Catholic countrymen; 
 and in A. D. 1765, he sought for protection and peace in South 
 Carolina. There, at the Waxhaw settlements, General Jackson 
 was born, on the 15th of March, A. D. 1767. His father died 
 about the time of his birth, leaving to him his name. His mother 
 was left with nothing but a farm, to rear and educate him and his 
 brothers. Though poor, she determined to give him a liberal edu- 
 cation, and she therefore placed him, at a very tender age, at school. 
 He was but eight }'ears old when the Revolutionary war broke 
 out ; and, therefore, even in infancy, his mind became familiarized 
 to war. At first he heard but of battles fought far off to the north, 
 but soon the thunder-cloud rolled to the south, and deluged the 
 plains of Carolina in blood. Over his native state, everywhere 
 thundered the fierce Rawdon and the impetuous Tarleton. 
 
 "Wherever they hoisted their standard black, 
 Before them was murder, behind them was wrack." 
 
 How deep and undying must have been the hatred which his 
 soul acquired for tyranny in every form, at that early age, when 
 the prayer of the old, and the young, hourly went up to Heaven 
 for freeflow. How bitter must have been the enmity of his young 
 heart to England. His father, and his uncles, driven by her per- 
 secutions from Ireland, sought safet}' and refuge in America; but to 
 their wild retreat, had now come the blood-hounds of England, to hunt 
 him and his relatives to the death. Not a day passed by, but what 
 he hpard of farm-houses destroyed, and npighbours murdered — and 
 when he heard of the gallant exploits of Marion, and Sumpter, and 
 
308 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 Davies, how his soul must have been on fire to join their bands, and 
 meet, in arms, the oppressors of his country. Little did England 
 dream, that her cruelty was then laying the foundation of a military 
 education in the mind of a young boy, which was afterwards to 
 show itself by the destruction of "the flower of her army," on the 
 plains of New Orleans. 
 
 Hugh Jackson, the eldest brother of Andrew, lost his life in the 
 first battle of South Carolina, yet the widowed mother sent out her 
 two remaining sons to fight for their country's freedom ; and in the 
 attack made by Colonel Sumpter, on Hanging Rock, the boys be- 
 haved with daring and courage, though Andrew was but thirteen 
 years of age. 
 
 Shortly after this, Andrew Jackson, with nine of his neighbours, 
 repulsed a band of Tories, who came in the night to surprise and 
 capture Captain Sands. Jackson heard them approaching, and 
 alone, he sallied out to meet them. The report of his rifle, was the 
 first intimation his sleeping comrades had of danger. Though but a 
 lad, fear was a feeling unknown to him ; and he rushed into battle 
 with a coolness and intrepidity, that would have done honour to a 
 veteran whose hairs had grown grey in war. 
 
 Robert and Andrew Jackson, during the progress of the war, 
 were made prisoners at the house of their uncle, Mr. Crawford, 
 and carried to Camden, where they were treated with great inhu- 
 manity. In the refinement of cruelty, the brothers were separated. 
 An incident occurred at the time of their capture, which is worthy 
 of being related here. Whilst the British soldiers were plundering 
 the house of Mr. Crawford, the commanding officer " ordered 
 Andrew Jackson to clean his muddy boots." The young soldier 
 refused, claiming to be treated with the respect due to a prisoner of 
 war. Instead of admiring this manly spirit, in one so young, the 
 cowardly ruffian struck at his head with his sword ; but, throwing 
 tip his left hand, the intended victim received a gash upon it, the 
 scar of which, he carried to his grave. Turning to Robert Jackson, 
 the officer ordered him to perform the menial task, and receiving a 
 like refusal, aimed a furious blow at his head also, and inflicted a 
 wound, from which he never recovered. 
 
 In this incident, and throughout the revolutionary war, we see 
 that proud, unbending, and heroic spirit, in the boy, that in after 
 years made the man — the day-star of his country's glory. In the 
 death of this brother, all of his family, save himself, had perished 
 through English oppression. He and his widowed mother, were 
 now alone. A kind Providence watched over and protected him 
 from every danger, and he lived, not only to avenge the wrongs 
 heaped upon him, his kindred, and his countrymen, by the tyrants 
 of England, but long enough to see that country which she wished 
 to manacle, spring from the cradle to manhood, and rival, as she 
 
irvin's eulogy. 309 
 
 now does, England in science, in commerce, in arts, and in arms. 
 Aye, with that prophetic eye, with which the old hero was gifted, 
 he could see far into the future ; and upon his vision, no doubt, 
 there came the sight of the blood-stained flag of England, which 
 has always claimed dominion on the sea, drooping before the "stars 
 and stripes of his native land." 
 
 Reflections like these, to some, may not seem appropriate in a 
 funeral oration ; but love for England, formed no part of General 
 Jackson's religious creed. 
 
 Our independence was achieved, war had passed away, and peace 
 smiled on a people, no longer destined to submit to foreign dominion. 
 The young soldier had laid aside his arms, and now became the 
 student at law. In A. D. 1786, he was admitted to the practice of 
 law, and in A. D. 1788, he emigrated to Tennessee, and settled 
 down in Nashville, where he soon acquired a lucrative practice. 
 By General Washington, without solicitation, he was appointed 
 attorney-general for that territory. For many years after he had 
 fixed his residence in Tennessee, that country was the scene of In- 
 dian barbarities, and Indian wars. The early settlers were sur- 
 rounded by dangers, sufficient to have appalled any but " the bravest 
 of the brave." Every man was, therefore, from necessity, a soldier. 
 Jackson took part in many of their skirmishes and fights, never, 
 however, taking the command. By his fearlessness, and intrepidity, 
 he soon won the respect of his brave comrades. By the Indians, 
 he was known by the names of " Sharp Knife," and " Pointed 
 Arrow." 
 
 A few years more pass around, and the poor, and the friendless 
 young boy, has become one of the leading spirits of Tennessee ; — 
 courage, honesty, and industry, have already won for him a fortune, 
 and a name. The new territory is soon ready to be admitted into 
 the Union as a state : and General Jackson, in A. D. 1796, is 
 elected one of the delegates to the convention to frame the consti- 
 tution. In the same year, he was elected to the House of Repre- 
 sentatives, and in the following year, to the Senate of the United 
 States. But a young man, and unsolicited on his part, we find his 
 fellow-citizens heaping upon him the highest honours within their 
 gift. Such was the veneration and esteem, which his virtues, and 
 his talents, had already won for him. In A. D. 1799, sick of 
 politics, and disgusted with the tyrannical character of some of the 
 measures of the then administration, he resigned his seat in the 
 Senate of the United States. During his senatorship, he was elected 
 Major-general of the Tennessee militia, which rank he continued 
 to hold until he took the same grade in the United States army, in 
 A. D. 1814. 
 
 Upon his retirement from the Senate of the United States, Ten- 
 nessee was not disposed to allow him to lead a life of public inac- 
 
310 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 tion. The legislature of that state appointed him one of its supreme 
 judges. The duties of this office were discharged by him with 
 such impartiality and justice, that it was a matter of regret for all 
 men, when declining; health forced him to resign. 
 
 For several years, upon his farm, near Nashville, he lived a life 
 of uninterrupted quiet and domestic happiness. He loved his wife 
 with a romantic attachment, which none but few persons of his 
 enthusiastic character are susceptible of. Such were the fascinating 
 powers of his conversation, such the cheerfulness of his fireside, 
 and the warmth of his heart, that though but a private citizen, his 
 house at this time was the most public one in Tennessee. But this 
 quiet and repose were soon destined to be disturbed. His peaceful 
 countrv was once again to be desolated with war. When forbear- 
 ance ceased to be a virtue, and peace could only be purchased by 
 the most abject and cowardly submission to indignities, the Union 
 declared war against her ancient foe. General Jackson, on fire to 
 meet in manhood, those foes, who, in the days of his boyhood, 
 with murder and rapine for their companions, had desolated his na- 
 tive state, raised three thousand volunteers, and offered them to his 
 country. They were accepted, and ordered to New Orleans. With 
 his command, he marched to Natchez, and whilst there, received 
 a peremptory order to disband his men. Instead of obeying the 
 order, he marched his men back to Tennessee. His love of justice 
 was so great, that rather than desert, by abandoning far from home, 
 those patriotic men, he disobeyed the positive orders of his govern- 
 ment. No power on earth could make him commit what he con- 
 sidered to be wrong. The cowardly and treacherous conduct of 
 Hull, had so inflamed his soul, that he burned to wipe out the dis- 
 grace inflicted on our arms at Detroit. He wrote to the govern- 
 ment, begging to be ordered north, that he might plant the Ameri- 
 can eagle on the walls of Maiden ; but his prayer was disregarded, 
 and his command dismissed. Once more he was left in retirement, 
 but his soul was with his countrymen in the field. 
 
 Not long, however, did he thus remain. The English had called 
 into the field a new element of war. The Indians, armed by their 
 allies, were murdering the defenceless citizens. Again, at the call 
 of Tennessee, he took the field. He hurried with his command to 
 the enemy's country, and such was the celerity of his movements, 
 such the courage with which he inspired raw and inexperienced 
 soldiers, that he could have ended the war with the Creeks in one 
 month, had he been supplied with provisions for his army. By 
 gross negligence, he was reduced to such straits that he knew not 
 how to subsist from day to day his men. He penetrated into the 
 enemy's country, and struck the first blow at Talladega. For want 
 of provisions he was obliged to fall back, instead of following up 
 his success. Hunger, famine, and mutiny were in his camp, and 
 
irvin's eulogy. 311 
 
 the enemy without. No other man living, save himself, could have 
 kept the army together. Whole regiments attempted to march off 
 at a time ; but such was the terror he inspired when roused, that a 
 thousand mutineers quailed before his single presence, and slunk 
 back to duty. His men were constantly leaving him, as their terms 
 expired, and fresh ones arriving. He had under his command no 
 disciplined soldiery. As soon as he was able, through provisions 
 and men, he again attacked the enemy at Emuckfaw. Whilst 
 crossing the river Enotochopco, he was attacked by the Indians in 
 ambush, but so excellent were the dispositions made by him against 
 surprise, that the Indians were driven back with great loss. In 
 those two actions, Jackson lost but twenty men, the Indians two 
 hundred. The Creeks made their final stand at Horseshoe, on the 
 Talapoosa river. Here Jackson attacked them on the 27th of 
 March, A. D. 1814, carried their fortifications, and killed over 
 eight hundred warriors. This blow put an end to the war. In 
 five months this powerful and hostile tribe was reduced to submis- 
 sion. The wonderful rapidity of his movements — his dauntless 
 courage, that nothing could appal, — the battles won with raw, un- 
 disciplined soldiers, — his keeping his army in the field, when almost 
 every man was a mutineer, and his state wished to recall them, — 
 turned upon him every eye, as to a soldier sent by Heaven to beat 
 back the foe hovering along our coast, and threatening destruction 
 to our country. He, who, in the commencement of the war, asked 
 to lead his volunteers to Maiden, and plant the American eagle on 
 the soil of Canada, and was refused, had, without a commission 
 from the United States, fought his way, and gained for himself a 
 reputation that none of her educated soldiers possessed ; and now, 
 his country turned to him to take command of her Southern army, 
 and save from the ravages of the enemy her Southern coast. He 
 was ready at the call. Time will not permit me to relate the won- 
 ders achieved by him at New Orleans. All men unite in the be- 
 lief that none but him could have saved the city. The emergency 
 required his superhuman courage, energy, and firmness of purpose, 
 — and nobly were they displayed. The city, indeed, seem doomed 
 inevitably to destruction ; for fast upon it came the very flower of 
 the British army, the conquerors at Waterloo, — whilst within were 
 traitors, sending intelligence to the advancing foe. He came and 
 found the hearts of all men filled with gloom, despondency, and 
 terror. His commanding presence inspired courage in the timid, 
 and fear in the hearts of the treacherous. Courage and confidence 
 were infused in his troops by precipitating them upon the foe ; and 
 the enemy soon learned to respect both the commander and his 
 citizen soldiery. The eighth of January arrived. The British 
 troops, in column, advanced to storm his works, — but though they 
 had stormed and carried Badajos and Ciudad Rodrigo, — though 
 
312 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 they had been conquerors on many a hard-fought field, over the 
 choicest of Napoleon's troops, — and though, on that occasion, they 
 behaved with a discipline and a courage that shed additional lustre 
 on the British arms, yet they could not mount the cotton-bales at 
 New Orleans; for, behind them lay the unerring riflemen of the 
 West, commanded by one who never knew fear. The evening of 
 that day saw three thousand of the British soldiers, with their gene- 
 ral, dead upon the field. The war was over ; and on our side it 
 had ended in a blaze of glory. The disgrace inflicted on our arms 
 at Detroit, was wiped out at New Orleans. The object of the ene- 
 my was to make a permanent conquest at New Orleans ; and Jack- 
 son, by saving it, became the saviour of the western country. 
 
 We have seen him as the victorious general ; we have now to 
 contemplate him in another character, — as a citizen, submitting to 
 the laws. Behold him arraigmed in New Orleans, — see the indis- 
 nant crowd ready to drag his persecutor from the bench, — listen to 
 the trembling and faltering voice of the craven judge, as he pro- 
 nounces sentence, and to the cheering tones of Jackson, as he bids 
 him to proceed, assuring him that the arm which saved the city 
 from destruction, will protect him from the violence of a grateful 
 and exasperated people. 
 
 Again he retires to his home, when his country no longer has 
 need for his services ; but again is he destined to be called, by his 
 country, from retirement. The Seminole Indians are in arms, — 
 he hastens to the rescue of his countrymen, and crossing into Spa- 
 nish territory, captures the fortresses of Pensacola and Barrancas. 
 Arraigned at the bar of public opinion, he is sustained by his coun- 
 try and the world. 
 
 Once more we find him at the Hermitage — this man who desires 
 not the emoluments of office; but in a country like ours, one who 
 has manifested the sterling virtues that adorned Jackson, can not 
 remain in retirement. In them, the people feel confident they 
 can repose any trust, sure that their confidence will never be abused. 
 He was called again to the Senate, and afterwards, most reluctantly 
 forced into the field as one of the candidates for the presidency. 
 Though far outstripping his competitors before the people, yet was 
 he not chosen president. But 1828 witnessed his triumph. I 
 know that I am now treading; on contested around, but truth and 
 justice demand, that the honour that is due to 'the genius of this 
 most extraordinary man, should, on an occasion like this, be paid. 
 I would not willingly offend any of those who entertain different 
 sentiments from what I do, of the policy of his administration, yet 
 still I must speak, though I do it feebly, of the genius he displayed, 
 and the patriotism he exhibited, whilst president of the United 
 States. That he was a man of great genius, is proven by the fact, 
 that for more than sixteen years, he was the oracle of his party. 
 
irvin's eulogy. 313 
 
 No man could maintain that position in either of the two great 
 parties, without being a man of commanding intellect. Men bow 
 not down to their inferiors in mind, and yet, long after Jackson had 
 retired from political life, in every emergency, and in every trial, 
 all eyes were turned to the Hermitage, and every ear listened with 
 veneration and respect to the words of wisdom, of counsel, and of 
 warning, addressed to his countrymen ; and at this hour, whilst the 
 sod is fresh upon his grave, in the estimation of mankind, as a sage, 
 he holds a place second to none, not even unto him of Monticello. 
 As statesmen, there was a striking resemblance between Jefferson 
 and Jackson. Both were distinguished by a devoted love for liberty 
 — both had an unwavering and abiding confidence in the people — 
 and both were possessed of a far-seeing sagacity, that enabled them 
 to speak of the future, with almost the inspiration of prophecy. 
 Both made a deep impression upon their institutions, and their age ; 
 and whilst there may be a greater degree of polish about the 
 writing of Jefferson, there is something in Jackson's style, so full 
 of soul, and heart, and truth, so forcible and impressive, that he 
 loses nothing by comparison. Great, wonderful, and unequalled, 
 was the moral courage and firmness possessed by Jackson ; whilst 
 ever ready to listen to counsel before coming to conclusions, when 
 truth was once arrived at, as well might Gibraltar have been shaken 
 to its foundations, as he removed from her basis. Though every 
 friend that he possessed on earth had deserted him, yet with his 
 bold heart, he would have stood alone, and fought against an erring 
 world. He was, indeed, a man of iron will, and iron nerves. 
 Great as is the fame he now enjoys, it is as nothing, to what it is 
 destined to become. 
 
 During his vigorous administration, our country obtained for her- 
 self a respect abroad, never before enjoyed. Through him, the 
 proclamation was made unto the world, that whilst America would 
 demand nothing but what was right, she would submit to nothing 
 that was wrong. 
 
 He ever regarded, with holy veneration, the Union of these states ; 
 and when, during his administration, it was threatened, he was at 
 once in arms, and when he proclaimed, " The Union must, and 
 shall be preserved," all men knew it would be done. If there is a 
 single man amongst this vast audience, who doubts the pure motives 
 by which, throughout life, this great man was governed, to him I 
 say, listen to those words of truth, of beauty, and eloquence, 
 which flowed from him when the reiterated assaults of his enemies 
 compelled him to speak: 
 
 " In vain do I bear upon my person, enduring memorials of that 
 
 contest in which American liberty was purchased; in vain have I 
 
 since perilled property, fame, and life, in defence of the rights 
 
 and privileges so dearly bought, * * * if any serious doubts 
 
 27 
 
314- MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 can be entertained, as to the purity of my purposes and motives. 
 * * * In the history of conquerors and usurpers, never, in the 
 fire of youth, nor in the vigour of manhood, could I find an attrac- 
 tion to lure me from the path of duty ; and now, I shall scarcely 
 find an inducement to commence their career of ambition, when 
 gray hairs, and a decaying frame, instead of inviting to toil and 
 battle, call me to the "contemplation of other worlds, where con- 
 querors cease to be honoured, and usurpers expiate their crimes. 
 The only ambition I can feel, is to acquit myself to Him to whom 
 I must soon render an account of my stewardship, to serve my 
 fellow-men, and live respected and honoured in the history of my 
 country. No : the ambition which leads me on, is an anxious 
 desire, and a fixed determination, to return to the people, unimpaired, 
 the sacred trust they have confided to my charge : * * * to 
 persuade my countrymen, so far as I may, that it is not in a splendid 
 government, supported by powerful monopolies, and aristocratical 
 establishments, that they will find happiness, or their liberties pro- 
 tection ; but in a plain system, void of pomp — dispensing its bless- 
 ings, like the dews of Heaven, unseen and unfelt, save in the 
 freshness and beauty they contribute to produce. It is such a go- 
 vernment that the genius of our people requires — such an one only, 
 under which our states may remain, for ages to come, united, 
 prosperous, and free. If the Almighty Being, who has hitherto 
 sustained and protected me, will vouchsafe to make my feeble 
 powers instrumental to such a result, I shall anticipate, with plea- 
 sure, the place to be assigned to me in the history of my country, 
 and die, contented with the belief, that I have contributed, in some 
 small degree, to increase the value, and prolong the duration, of 
 American liberty." 
 
 When he retired from the presidential chair, and sought again 
 that home he so much loved, it was with a reputation as a states- 
 man, equal, if not superior to that he enjoyed as a warrior. 
 
 The evening of his life is destined to be calm and beautiful. Up 
 to this period, it had been spent, from childhood, in the midst of 
 perils, storms, and tempests ; and now, for the first time, he felt the 
 sweet and gentle influences of peace. Though always governed by 
 a high degree of religious feeling, his life had been such, whilst 
 surrounded by enemies, that he could not render that devotion to 
 his God, which marked and characterized the latter years of his 
 life. But now, these influences were no longer at work, and this 
 man of iron laid himself down at the foot of the cross. Yes, my 
 fellow-citizens, this stern and heroic warrior — this firm and unbend- 
 ing statesman, became a meek and lowly follower of Jesus. Every 
 Sabbath day saw that aged man kneeling before the altar of God, 
 and in his prayers he forgot not his country, but invoked the bless- 
 ings of Heaven upon it. Years roll around, and though the hand 
 
315 
 
 of disease is upon him — though pain and suffering are ever present, 
 and death constantly hovering around, his soul and intellect are as 
 firm as in the vigour of manhood, whilst his devotion to his God, 
 and his love for his country, remain unchanged. 
 
 His career is fast hastening to a close. Great and good as he is, 
 yet he too must die. Soon, his children shall no longer hear his 
 voice of kindness and affection — the poor and the afflicted shall miss 
 his tones of consolation ; and deeds of charity and his country, ah ! 
 where shall she look, to find another like unto him. The last day 
 he is to spend on earth, is at hand. He feels upon him the hand of 
 death, and prays " that his enemies may find peace, and that the 
 liberties of his country may endure for ever." 
 
 In this hour, he could not witness the grief of those he loved, 
 and when the sobs of his children broke upon his ear, " Do not 
 weep," said he, " my sufferings are less than those of Christ upon 
 the cross." His household were all assembled, and around him 
 were gathered children and servants, who would have died for him, 
 could they have thereby assuaged his pain. He spoke to them of 
 religion in words of eloquence, and implored them to put their 
 trust in God, and then bade them farewell : — " Dear children, ser- 
 vants, and friends," said he, "I trust to meet you all in Heaven, 
 both white and black, all, both white and black." Thus died the 
 greatest man of his age. 
 
 "The veteran died as a Christian dies, 
 
 With hope in his Saviour God, 
 And now, on that brave old heart there lies 
 
 The heavy and fresh green sod ; 
 But his deeds will tell, when his crumbling dust, 
 From his frame shall fall, and his falchion rust." 
 
EULOGY 
 
 DELIVERED AT CHARLOTTE, TENN., JULY 17, 1845, 
 
 BY 
 
 J. G. HARRIS, Esq. 
 
 Our country mourns the loss of an illustrious benefactor. 
 
 Andrew Jackson departed this life at the Hermitage, on Sunday, 
 the 8th of June, ultimo, at six o'clock in the afternoon, having ad- 
 vanced to the age of seventy-eight years. 
 
 The soldier, the patriot, the statesman, the sage, rests from the 
 cares and anxieties of an eventful career, and with the Christian's 
 full hope, confidently awaits the last trump which shall summon his 
 spirit to realms of immortality. 
 
 He was ready to die. He had lived a kind neighbour, a true 
 friend, an honest man. 
 
 He had served his country faithfully — having filled the measure 
 of its glory to the brim — and his unbounded solicitude for its per- 
 manent and enduring welfare was, up to the last hour of his life, 
 ardent, unabated. 
 
 He had been spared, by a merciful Providence, to enjoy more 
 than one man's share of years ; and throughout the long and linger- 
 ing illness which preceded his closing scene, he often announced 
 his entire readiness to " march" hence whenever "the word" should 
 be given from on High ; or, as he sometimes said, " at the first tap 
 of the drum." 
 
 He is gone. He sleeps with his fathers. His name is registered 
 high among the highest, upon the scroll of fame. 
 
 You all know something, much, of his character — many of you 
 more than I can tell. Some of you have been his compatriots in 
 arms — others have enjoyed his acquaintance, his friendship — the 
 aged are well informed of his history, and the youth have doubt- 
 heard their fathers and mothers describe his deeds of great- 
 ness. Tennesseeans all knew him, and his renown is the highest 
 prirlo of their state. The American people knew him, and with- 
 
 (316) 
 
EULOGY. 317 
 
 out his solicitation they repeatedly heaped upon him their highest 
 honours, as the meed of their admiration of his character, their 
 gratitude for his eminent public services. 
 
 Born in South Carolina, 1767, he entered the Revolutionary war 
 at the age of fourteen, in which he received an honourable wound. 
 The study of the law he commenced in 1784, and was admitted to 
 the bar as a practitioner in 1786. At the age of twenty-one he 
 emigrated to this section of the country, which was then the south- 
 western territory of the Union, where he was appointed the attor- 
 ney of the government. Educated in the schools of the Revolu- 
 tionary period, he had yet much to acquire by personal application, 
 nor did he fail in the acquisition. At an early day his superior 
 qualifications for the public service were recognised by the bold 
 and enterprising spirits of the sparsely settled territory to which he 
 had come, and when, in 1795, it became necessary to form a con- 
 stitution for the new state of Tennessee, he was chosen a member 
 of the convention assembled for that purpose. He so distinguished 
 himself in that assembly, as giving tone to a constitution which has 
 been the admiration of eminent statesmen, that he was made the 
 first representative in Congress under it. At the expiration of 
 his term, being thirty years of age, he was elected to the United 
 States Senate, which place he resigned after the second year of its 
 occupancy, accepting an invitation to preside over the highest court 
 of this state. 
 
 Thus, at the age of thirty-three years, had he risen gradually, 
 from a lawyer's clerkship, to the supreme bench, from the ranks 
 of the Revolution to the American Senate. 
 
 It was natural, therefore, that at the opening of the British and 
 Indian wars, public attention should turn to him as the champion 
 of our country's rights in the West. Having been the choice of 
 Tennessee as a general of the militia twelve years before, he ex- 
 perienced little or no difficulty in raising twenty-five hundred vo- 
 lunteers for the service, from amongst the brave and patriotic spirits 
 of this region, to provide for whose comfort he advanced five thou- 
 sand dollars from his own purse, and at whose head he repaired to 
 the Creek nation in the year following, terminating, in a few 
 months, the fearful border difficulties which existed at the time. 
 
 The government beheld him as the master-spirit of the South- 
 west, and in 1814, conferred on him the appointment cf brigadier- 
 general in the United States army. With the Creeks, whom he 
 had already subdued, he now established an advantageous treaty, 
 and then marched to Pensacola to chastise the Spanish authorities 
 for their treacherous conduct in harbouring and protecting our ene- 
 my, the British and Indians. Pensacola was reduced — Fort Bar- 
 rancas surrendered — and the enemy dispersed. 
 
 Apprised that the British were contemplating an attack upon 
 
 07 * 
 
318 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 JNew Orleans, as a "key" to the great West, he marched along the 
 gulf towards that city, arresting their advance by a daring night at- 
 tack, December 23d, again repulsing them on the 28th, and again 
 on the 1st of January, 1815. 
 
 But the great and glorious victory of three thousand seven 
 hundred western riflemen over nine thousand of Wellington's most 
 efficient soldiers, with a loss of only thirteen to the former, and about 
 three thousand to the latter, was reserved for the glorious eighth. 
 This brilliant achievement, conclusive evidence to the crown of 
 the mother-country that Americans were unconquerable on their 
 own soil, defending and securing the vast possessions of Louisiana 
 as purchased under Mr. Jefferson, which had excited the envy and 
 aroused the jealousy of the world, is so sublime in its character and 
 results, that it cannot fail to embellish the brightest pages in our 
 country's history. 
 
 Fond of retirement, and unambitious of public honours, he now 
 desired, on the restoration of peace, to leave the service and return 
 to his farm — but the president insisted in the most persuasive terms 
 that he should remain, as his military services at the South might 
 yet be required by the government. He consented, and in 1817, 
 marched against the Seminoles in Florida, summarily executing two 
 incendiaries who were secretly encouraging the Indians in their 
 aggressions, again entering Pensacola, and again taking Fort Bar- 
 rancas, to which the Spanish governor had fled. 
 
 Four years afterwards, when Florida was ceded to the United 
 States, he was appointed governor of that territory ; and in the 
 year following, was nominated by his own Tennessee for the presi- 
 dency of the United States. 
 
 In the presidential election of 1824, he received a greater num- 
 ber of votes than any other candidate — and yet another was 
 chosen by the lower house of Congress, regardless of the popular 
 preference. 
 
 The pride of Tennessee was aroused at this injustice. From the 
 formation of her constitution, he had been one of her most 
 cherished jewels. She had trusted him often and always, and he 
 had never betrayed her. She had named him for the chief magis-. 
 tracy — he had a plurality of votes — and yet one who had received 
 many less was preferred by those on whom devolved the constitu- 
 tional alternative in the absence of a choice by the people. With a 
 spirit worthy of a sovereign state, she again uttered her unabated 
 confidence in him, and manifested her displeasure at the treatment 
 he had received by electing him in the same year, and for a second 
 time, to the United States Senate, there to speak as with her voice, 
 there to wield her destiny. 
 
 In these wrongs which he had experienced his countrymen par- 
 ticipated, and before the close of the session, he was renominated 
 
Harris's eulogy. 319 
 
 for the first office in their gift by general acclamation. He retired 
 for a second time from the United States Senate — the purest and 
 most exalted deliberative body of the kind on earth — to his farm 
 upon the Cumberland, and at the polls of 1828, the thwarted will 
 of the people recovered its full power by his triumphant election 
 to the proudest seat that was ever occupied by man. 
 
 So prosperous was the country during his constitutional term of 
 office, so sound his policy, so wise his administration, that he was 
 elected a second time by an overwhelming majority — thus endowed 
 with all the popular honours awarded to Washington, Jefferson, 
 Madison, Monroe, illustrious statesmen who had preceded him. 
 
 With a popularity, surpassed only by that which was carried to 
 Mount Vernon by the Father of his country, he returned to the 
 Hermitage, upon the close of his last term, at the age of three 
 score and ten — ripe with honours, laden with the blessings of his 
 countrymen. 
 
 His last eight years, though passed in retirement, are, perhaps, 
 more interesting in many respects than those which preceded them 
 — but in almost every incident of his life since the maturity of his 
 manhood, we behold a text wherefrom may be illustrated the most 
 exemplary specimen of human character. 
 
 The mighty power of his opinions upon important public ques- 
 tions as exhibited in our documentary history, and in the evening 
 of life, while quietly reposing at the Hermitage far away from the 
 seat of our government, is the crowning evidence of his goodness 
 and greatness. His late letters and earlier state papers, which in 
 years past and in years to come have had and will continue to have 
 controlling influences over our policy and institutions, are of a 
 theme to which the deliberative historian alone can do full justice. 
 They will stand forth as landmarks to the paths of honour and 
 safety, equal, if not superior in their prominence, to those of Jef- 
 ferson. They Mill be consulted as the oracles of political faith ; 
 and for ages and ages after the hand that traced them shall have 
 crumbled to its native dust, their vigour and freshness will be un- 
 impaired. 
 
 Andrew Jackson never occupied a doubtful position upon any 
 question. A decided and substantive character, his friends and his 
 enemies always knew where to find him. If his countrymen sought 
 his opinion, they had it in plain terms, few words. It was received 
 as that of a true patriot having had great experience, one whom 
 they had known long and watched closely, and one whom they 
 regarded as being more like " the sober second thought, never 
 wrong, and always efficient," than any man living. If they were 
 beclouded with doubt, if the turmoil of party collisions aroused 
 their apprehensions for the safety of the republic, his abiding con- 
 fidence in the virtue and intelligence of his countrymen was re- 
 
320 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 ceived as "the inspiration of his instinctive wisdom," which has 
 been likened to " prophecy." 
 
 The weather-beaten mariner at sea, when his bark, under the 
 lash of the tempest lor many days, has been driven from her true 
 course and is in imminent danger of being wrecked upon a danger- 
 ours coast, paces the deck in an anguish approaching to despair, 
 now looking away in one direction and then in another, hoping to 
 discern some certain indication that the dense black clouds, which 
 have so long overhung him, will soon break away and afford him 
 an opportunity to observe the sun by which to determine his exact 
 position on the broad ocean. And when the storm subsides, and the 
 god of day comes peering through the dissipating clouds, he raises 
 his quadrant to his eye, makes his observation, calculates his course 
 and distance, and with a cheerful smile playing upon every linea- 
 ment of his face, puts his ship on a new tack — that from which she 
 had departed — in the nearest possible direction of the destined 
 haven. 
 
 Andrew Jackson was to the American people as the sun to the 
 mariner. 
 
 When our old ship of state was lashed by the surging billows of 
 popular opinion dangerously excited — when the political storm 
 threatened to strand her upon the sterile beach of despotism — when 
 the blindness of partisan zeal had so far affected the public mind 
 as to obscure the light of reason, when we had lost our reckoning, 
 and the national craft was in a condition which made the wisest of 
 all parties shudder for the result — where did we turn for advice, for 
 counsel ? 
 
 Go to the correspondence of the deceased veteran, and you will 
 see that from one extreme of our country to the other — from the 
 lakes to the gulf, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific — when the 
 storm was over, and reason had resumed her enlightened empire, 
 the American people, like the anxious mariner, consulted their sun 
 — the sun of their political firmament — and like him brought back 
 their ship to the true tack which would bear them to the harbour 
 of safety. 
 
 His integrity was inflexible ; his patriotism undisputed. He 
 who had never deceived them was reliable. He who had always 
 foreseen and averted public dangers when in public life, could see 
 them still in his retirement. 
 
 It is not wonderful that such a man should have had such an in- 
 fluence with such a people. Gradually rising from the humbler 
 walks of life to the most exalted stations on earth, he knew the 
 wants, feelings, and sympathies of all classes, all conditions; and 
 his countrymen were to him as the equal members of the same 
 great family associated for their common benefit. Hence, his in- 
 fluence upon public opinion was necessarily great ; and if he used 
 
Harris's eulogy. 321 
 
 it in accordance with his solid judgment, who shall have the teme- 
 rity to say he was a dictator 1 In the heat of partisan excitement 
 the charge has been often preferred, but thanks to the just and dis- 
 criminating spirit of our fellow-citizens, it has been as often refuted 
 to the satisfaction of the world. 
 
 The dictator holds to principles adverse to those of his people, 
 and enforces obedience. Jackson's principles were those which 
 the popular interests reflected, and with which his own interests, 
 as a citizen, were identified in every respect. Instead of com- 
 pelling the masses of the people to coincide with him, he foresaw 
 their inclination, and coincided with them as their champion. 
 
 Is there a man in your precinct whose life is so spotless that he 
 deservedly possesses a large share of influence with his neighbours'? 
 Is he to be denounced as a dictator? Is his opinion concerning 
 matters which involve the welfare of the neighbourhood eagerly 
 sought, and when obtained to be pronounced dictation 1 If in 
 doubt concerning a portion of the Sacred Scriptures you obtain the 
 explanation of a celebrated divine, in whom you have full confi- 
 dence, shall it be said that he is your dictator ? God forbid that the 
 invaluable opinions of great and good men, either in politics or re- 
 ligion, should be rejected by a free and Christian people as dictation. 
 
 No man was ever further from a desire to control the volitions 
 of his countrymen against their will — no one was ever less obnox- 
 ious to the charge of dictation. It was but a few days before his 
 death that a citizen of this state called upon him for his signature 
 to a petition for an office, when he replied : " No, no, I cannot do 
 it, for they will say I am dictating to the president." 
 
 Within the last few years his opinions on all great questions, di- 
 viding public sentiment, have been sought with avidity. When 
 he spoke by letter his voice was heard to the remotest parts of the 
 republic, and not unfrequently throughout the civilized world. 
 Nor can the fact be disguised that his letters on the annexation of 
 Texas to our territory constituted the great and powerful lever by 
 which that glorious measure was launched upon the tide of success. 
 They excited the jealousy of England, if not the envy of the en- 
 tire Holy Alliance ; but they revived and strengthened the waning 
 hopes of Texas, and made glad the hearts of its people. 
 
 A distinguished Texan says, that at a moment when his country 
 had almost despaired of establishing a reunion, when they were 
 going deeper and deeper into debt to maintain the necessary de- 
 fences of their frontier, and were nearly driven to entertain propo- 
 sitions for protective alliances with other nations, General Jackson 
 was writing to his own countrymen that it was "the golden mo- 
 ment" for annexation, and exhorting his friends in Texas to take 
 courage, for the time would come, and that speedily, when the 
 
322 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 American people would demand annexation at the hands of their 
 government. 
 
 The time came. He lived to hear the demand which he had 
 previously predicted. The work is done — and although the vene- 
 rable old patriot did not last until its consummation, yet, thanks to 
 an indulgent Providence, he was spared long enough to see the end 
 with certainty, and to exclaim, as he did in one of his last letters — 
 
 " ALL IS SAFE !" 
 
 Yes — all is safe. The Congress of Texas met on the 16th ulti- 
 mo, and unanimously accepted the definitive proposition which had 
 been made by this government — and, ere this, the convention of 
 delegates, to assemble on the 4th instant, fresh from the people, 
 have doubtless sealed their reunion to our national family, by the 
 adoption of a constitution as a free and independent state of this 
 great confederacy. Welcome — thrice welcome to our new-born 
 sister. 
 
 Of unerring sagacity, steady mind, cool deliberation, solid judg- 
 ment, strength of understanding, and infinite nerve, with the most 
 unwearying patience and perseverance, he accomplished all things 
 which he earnestry attempted. It is said that the Emperor Joseph 
 on his death-bed exclaimed, in the anguish of his spirit, that his 
 epitaph should be : " Here lies Joseph, who was unsuccessful in all 
 his undertakings." How true to the letter would be the epitaph of 
 the departed hero, were it to read : " Here lies Jackson, who was 
 successful in all his undertakings." 
 
 His entire life is a striking example of the rich rewards which 
 sooner or later unfailingly crown patriotic deeds. 
 
 When the French government had too long delayed the payment 
 of a just debt due to this country, and when called upon for the 
 amount, had evinced a disposition to treat us rather cavalierly, Pre- 
 sident Jackson insisted upon promptness, giving notice that in the 
 event of longer delay, we would be justifiable in the issuance of 
 letters of marque and reprisal. The king was disposed to construe 
 this into an insult, and it was intimated that an apology would be 
 indispensable. To this the old hero replied with characteristic em- 
 phasis : " The honour of my country shall never be stained by an 
 apology from me for the statement of truth and the -performance 
 of duty.* 3 The French minister at Washington had asked and re- 
 ceived his passports — a war seemed to be near at hand, if not already 
 on the tapis — when all at once the money was paid to the utter- 
 most farthing, diplomatic courtesies restored, and peaceable rela- 
 tions re-established. 
 
 INine years have elapsed, and what do we behold? The same 
 grand monarch who had learned that his crown with all its jewels 
 could not have purchased an apology from Andrew Jackson, be- 
 comes such an admirer of the veteran's character that he despatches 
 
Harris's eulogy. 323 
 
 a favourite Parisian artist across the Atlantic to hasten to the Her- 
 mitage, and to procure, if possible, a likeness of him from life, as 
 the centre of a circle of portraits of distinguished Americans, to 
 ornament the royal chambers of the Louvre, St. Cloud, or Versailles. 
 
 This portrait was completed a week before the general's death. 
 It was the last and one of the very best likenesses ever taken of him. 
 
 Nor comes this tribute from the king alone. Elevated by the 
 voice of his people, and not exclusively by divine grace, he knows 
 the admiration of Jackson's character which prevails amongst 
 Frenchmen from Havre to Marseilles, and it becomes the better 
 part of good policy for him to anticipate their wishes. It is a tri- 
 bute paid by millions of the admiring countrymen of La Fayette. 
 
 So was the reward of his gallant and self-sacrificing conduct at 
 New Orleans certain and ample. Not only for his services in the 
 field, but for the magnanimity with which he protected the court 
 and paid the fine which it imposed upon him for proclaiming mar- 
 tial law within the limits of his own camp! The timorous judge, 
 surrounded by hosts of patriotic freemen who had followed their 
 chief to the spot, trembled in his seat when contemplating the pro- 
 bable consequences of such a decision as he had resolved upon. 
 Discovering this, the general rose, stretched forth his hand, and 
 said : " Proceed, sir ; the arm which has saved the city shall pro- 
 tect you in the discharge of what you conceive to be your duty." 
 The fine of one thousand dollars was imposed, when a check for 
 the amount was tendered him by the ladies. " No (said he), this 
 is my privilege — distribute the collections which the ladies have 
 made among the widows and orphans of those who have fallen in 
 tflfc defence of the city — I will pay the fine myself." The welkin 
 fang with the hearty shouts of an enthusiastic populace, who formed 
 a triumphal seat of their heads and hands, bore him through the 
 city, and listened to his grateful acknowledgment of their devotion 
 from the balcony of his residence. 
 
 But a richer reward than this awaited him. In process of time 
 the propriety of his proclamation of martial law being questioned 
 by some of his countrymen, a motion was made in Congress to ap- 
 prove the act by refunding the fine with interest. During the de- 
 lay occasioned by a vigorous opposition, the state of Louisiana 
 passpd an act pledging itself to refund it in the event that the mo- 
 tion failed in Congress. But it did not fail. That which had been 
 so magnanimously paid by him, was with corresponding magna- 
 nimity refunded by a special law of his country — and I have often 
 heard him say that he accepted it, not so much for the sake of the 
 amount as that the resolutions of Congress entirely annihilating 
 every vestige of imputation upon his conduct at New Orleans, 
 might be fulfilled to all intents and purposes. 
 
 His long, useful, and eventful life is full of examples like these. 
 
324- MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 He loved truth and justice for their own sake, their intrinsic ex 
 cellence, their wholesome influences. In all the relations of life 
 he tenderly cherished them as the pure crystal dew-drops of the 
 morning, which, trembling on the open leaf, receive and impart 
 their diamond brilliancy under the first rays of the rising sun. 
 Truth was the talisman of his successful career, and he promoted it 
 with all the ardour of his nature as the leaven of good society, the 
 soul of honour. The syllables of his lips were the voice of his 
 heart, and his hands their faithful executive. Even and exact jus- 
 tice was the touch-stone with which he tried all public measures, 
 and the tenacity with which he adhered to conclusions thus found 
 were fixed as fate. These were his deities in practical life — and 
 his eye was steadfastly fixed on their advancement, careless, appa- 
 rently, whether he accompanied their car or was crushed beneath 
 its wheels. In this, neither the threat of a foreign monarch, nor a 
 domestic monster of associated wealth, could intimidate him. True 
 to every duty, even as the needle to the pole, he was always vic- 
 torious, even when almost everybody thought he would be defeated. 
 
 To a Tennessee audience I need not sa} T he was brave, or that he 
 never knew the sensation of fear when invited to a part in a just 
 cause. Thus engaged, all his energies united upon the end to be 
 accomplished. Morally, as well as physically brave, he never 
 hesitated in the expression of an honest opinion on public affairs, 
 even though it involved personal considerations which rendered it 
 a hazardous undertaking. 
 
 In his vocabulary, the words " temporize" and "expediency," 
 were not to be found. No noncommittal, no neutral, no trimmuj, 
 he inquired not for the popular but the right side. The plume of 
 his helmet always nodded in the front rank of his friends, whom he 
 never deserted without having most positive proof of misconduct 
 or defection. Their defeat was his defeat — his triumph, their 
 triumph. He was never an obstruction in their path, he never 
 triumphed over them. He shared their troubles, they participated 
 in his joys. As a characteristic it was the admiration of all, with- 
 out sectarian or partisan distinction — for everybody knew that he 
 respected a bold and dignified opponent more than a timid and 
 sycophantic coadjutor. 
 
 Although it may have appeared to the superficial observer of his 
 career, that he was subject to the undue excitement of passion, of 
 an irritable disposition, an irascible temperament, yet nothing can 
 be more erroneous, for his feelings were in constant and entire sub- 
 jugation to his mind, with the considerate reservation, that while 
 there are times for forbearance, and times for resentment, the cause 
 of justice always suffers from delay. 
 
 He never longed for the pomp and blandishment of power — he 
 was neither seduced by the one, nor dazzled by the other. While 
 
Harris's eulogy. 325 
 
 he was not importunate for office, he accepted it cheerfully, with a 
 deep and lively sense of its weighty responsibilities, and an iron 
 will to discharge its duties with exemplary fidelity. He sought no 
 personal difficulties, nor did he decline them when they involved 
 high considerations of true honour. Indeed, one of his favourite 
 maxims was: "Neither seek nor decline." 
 
 In his chief magisterial capacity, his eye was steady and single 
 to the perpetuity of the Union, as the greatest of all public con- 
 siderations, believing that the manifold blessings of which our in- 
 stitutions are capable, must necessarily flow forth to the greatest 
 number. However keen, therefore, might have been his sympathy 
 with the citizens of any one state, who, under known grievances, 
 manifested a spirit of resistance which, in his judgment, had a 
 tendency to weaken the bonds, he was at no loss to discriminate 
 between private feelings and public duty, and stood forth a chosen 
 representative of the united sovereignty of the whole, declaring 
 that " The Union must be preserved." Averse to monopolies, 
 partial laws, and special privileges, he conducted his administration 
 in accordance with his favourite maxim : " The blessings of go- 
 vernment should be dispensed like the dews of Heaven, unseen 
 and unfelt, save in the freshness and beauty they contribute to 
 produce." 
 
 It has been said by an eminent English historian, that Napoleon 
 was the most extraordinary captain of his time — that though the con- 
 tests of Alexander were more extensive, the character of Csesar more 
 accomplished, the military genius of Napoleon is shared by Han- 
 nibal alone. It may be so — and yet it appears in the world's 
 history, that it was a portion of the same regularly marshalled, 
 well ordered, amply provided, and highly civilized soldiery, which 
 conquered Napoleon at Waterloo, that were most signally overcome 
 at New Orleans by an American force which they outnumbered 
 three to one, acting under the peculiar auspices of the military 
 genius of Jackson. 
 
 Nevertheless, it has been truly said : "His heart was full of the 
 gentlest affections." His home — the spot which he had chosen in 
 his youth as the most delightful to be found upon the then forest- 
 banks of the Cumberland — his family, his pursuits of agriculture, 
 were the pride of his life. The improvement of his stock, his soils, 
 and especially the beautiful grounds by which his dwelling is sur- 
 rounded, was his favourite vocation — while many of the intervals of 
 leisure were devoted to encouraging and often participating in the 
 innocent sports of his little grandchildren. A3' — all the domestic 
 virtues so precious to every household as the jewelry of the fireside, 
 were possessed, practised, and fostered, by the champion of a nation's 
 rights, who had so often led his countrymen to battle and victory. 
 
 His hospitality was unbounded. Six days in the week his house 
 28 
 
■J26 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 was open, free to all — and those who remained there over night, 
 were met upon rising with the maxim : " He who uses a bed in my 
 aouse must also use a plate before he leaves in the morning." In- 
 dustry, enterprise, and frugality, had given him enough of the earth's 
 comforts, and he used them with liberality. This inestimable quality 
 of his heart was uniformly acknowledged by the representatives of 
 foreign powers, as he imparted it to the national character abroad. 
 When the Mexican tyrant, overcome by Texans at San Jacinto, fled 
 to his roof for succour, he was received as though he had been an 
 intimate friend, and with all the respect due to his station at home. 
 Little as he loved his enemies, he held their honour to be as sacred 
 as his own — nor did a fellow-man in distress ever seek his protection 
 in vain. 
 
 He was kind and generous to the poor and the afflicted. One of 
 his old neighbours told me the other day that he had seen General 
 Jackson and his wife, in the prime of their lives, load their little 
 family vehicle with provisions and ride off six or eight miles of an 
 afternoon, in the pursuit of a family which they had heard was 
 sick and needy, and after finding and preparing refreshments for 
 the invalids with their own hands, spend a sleepless night at their 
 couch, administering to their wants with the tenderness and solici- 
 tude of parents. Nor was this an isolated case — it was their cus- 
 tom. Their charity and benevolence were proverbial. 
 
 He had come to the West in his youth, not as a reckless wanderer 
 " studious of change and fond of novelty," but to join the patriarchal 
 band of pioneers — the Robertsons, Weakleys, Shelbys, Donelsons, 
 and others — who had already settled near the spot where Nashville 
 now stands — men of intelligence, learning, and patriotism, who had 
 been eminently successful in the adoption of a peaceful policy with 
 the Indians, and had secured to their little encampment safety and 
 prosperity. He came to co-operate with them, and his decided, 
 firm, and resolute character, won their respect and esteem. His 
 knowledge of law became useful, and he soon advanced to a full 
 possession of their implicit confidence, not only as a man of words 
 but of deeds. 
 
 His unwearied efforts to open these new homes in the West for 
 those who came after him, were signal and efficient. In military, 
 as well as civil life, he was both loved and feared by the savage 
 tribes which at an early day inhabited these regions, never coercing 
 them until persuasion and negotiation had failed ; and his policy 
 towards them, while invested with the powers of the chief magis- 
 tracy, gathering together their scattered remnants, and locating 
 them as one people upon a tract suited to their habits and pursuits 
 beyond the Mississippi, where they now enjoy peace and plenty, 
 was of the most humane character and tendency. 
 
 His constant aim was to enlarge the area of Christianity and 
 
Harris's eulogy. 327 
 
 civilization, to diffuse the blessings of our liberties and laws through- 
 jut the western wilderness. During his time, much was accom- 
 plished — nor shall we stop here. 
 
 Westward we have pressed — westward still is our destiny. 
 
 The keen and piercing eye of the sagacious patriot did not fail 
 to discover through the dim vista of the future, that nothing short 
 of the Pacific shore could stop our progress; and he often predicted 
 that the influence of our institutions, in its western march, would 
 yet agonize the eastern portions of the old world, arouse from their 
 immemorial lethargy the worshippers of men and idols, and fire 
 their hearts with the enthusiasm of civil and religious liberty. 
 
 He was ever anxious that the government should encourage this 
 western movement, for he knew it to be the inclination of this great 
 and growing people. He knew that the spirit which impelled him 
 in his youth to cross the Cumberland Ridge, was the same laudable 
 spirit which is now impelling thousands of freemen to cross the 
 Rocky Mountains in the same direction ; and the last letter from 
 his own hand was written forty-eight hours before his death to his 
 friend, the president of the United States, praying him to be firm, 
 resolute, and determined, in the maintenance of our unquestionable 
 title to the Oregon, as asserted in his inaugural message. " Let our 
 rights in the north-west be maintained" (said he, in one of his 
 latest conversations), " and if war must be the consequence, let it 
 come, there will be patriots enough in the land to repel foreign 
 aggression, come whence it may." 
 
 Born in the East, he sleeps in the West — the defender of the 
 South, the champion of the North — his name and fame are the 
 common heritage of his country. But if there be one portion from 
 which more honour is due to his memory than another, it is the 
 portion inhabiting these western valleys, with whom he was more 
 particularly identified in sympathy, feeling, and in all the relations 
 of private life ; and who, to no inconsiderable extent, bear the im- 
 press of his exalted character. 
 
 His last will and testament being of record in the courts, there 
 can be no impropriety in referring to so much of it as illustrates 
 his patriotism, affection, and chivalry. 
 
 After bestowing his entire estate upon his adopted son and 
 namesake, with the exception of a few presents thereinafter to be 
 named, he proceeds — I give the exact language of the instrument, 
 as written in his own plain and steady hand : — 
 
 " I bequeath to my well-beloved nephew, Andrew J. Donelson, 
 &c, the elegant sword presented to me by the state of Tennessee, 
 with this injunction : that he fail not to use it when necessary, in 
 the support and protection of our glorious Union, and the protec- 
 tion of the constitutional rights of our beloved country, should 
 they ever be assailed by foreign enemies or domestic traitors. 
 
328 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 * * # This bequest is made as a memento of my high regard, 
 affection, and esteem, for him as a high-minded, honest, and hon- 
 ourable man. 
 
 "To my grand-nephew, Andrew Jackson Coffee, I bequeath the 
 elegant sword presented to me by the Rifle Company at New 
 Orleans, commanded by Captain Beal, as a memento of my regard, 
 and to bring to his recollection the gallant services of his deceased 
 father, General John Coffee, in the late Indian and British war, 
 under my command, and his gallant conduct in the defence of New 
 Orleans in 1814 and 1815, with this injunction: that he wield it 
 in protection of the rights secured to the American citizen under 
 our glorious constitution, against all invaders, whether foreign 
 foes or intestine traitors. 
 
 "I bequeath to my beloved grandson, Andrew Jackson — son of 
 Andrew Jackson, junior, and Sarah, his wife — the sword pre- 
 sented to me by the citizens of Philadelphia, with this injunction : 
 that he will always use it in defence of the constitution and our 
 glorious Union, and for the perpetuation of our republican system, 
 remembering the motto — ' Draw me not without occasion, sheathe 
 
 ME NOT WITHOUT HONOUR.' 
 
 " The pistols of General La Fayette, presented by him to Gene- 
 ral George Washington, and by Colonel William Robertson pre- 
 sented to me, I bequeath to George Washington La Fayette, as a 
 memento of the illustrious personages through whose hands they 
 have passed, his father, and the father of his country. 
 
 " The gold box presented to me by the corporation of the city 
 of New York — the large silver vase presented to me by the ladies 
 of Charleston, South Carolina, my native state — with the large 
 picture representing the unfurling of the American banner, pre- 
 sented to me by the citizens of South Carolina, when it was re- 
 fused to be accepted by the United States Senate — I leave in trust 
 to my son, A. Jackson, jr., with directions that should our happy 
 country not be blest with peace — an event not, always to be expect- 
 ed — he will, at the close of the war or end of the confict, present 
 each of said articles of inestimable value to that patriot residing 
 in the city or state from which they were severally presented, who 
 shall be adjudged by his countrymen or the ladies to have been 
 the most, valiant in defence of his country and his country's rights. 
 
 "The pocket spy-glass, which was used by General Washington 
 during the Revolutionary war, and presented to me by Mr. Curtis, 
 having been burned with my dwelling-house, the Hermitage, with 
 many other invaluable relics, I can make no disposition of them. 
 
 "As a memento of my high regard for General Robert Arm- 
 strong, as a gentleman, patriot, and soldier, as well as for his meri- 
 torious military services under my command during the late British 
 and Indian wars, and remembering the gallant bearing of him and 
 
Harris's eulogy. 329 
 
 his gallant little band at Enotochopco creek, when falling, despe- 
 rately wounded, he called out : « My brave fellows, some may fall, 
 but save the cannon' — as a memento of all these things, I give and 
 bequeath to him my case of pistols and sword worn by me through- 
 out my military career, icell satisfied that in his hands they will 
 never be disgraced, that they will never be used or drawn without 
 occasion, nor sheathed bvt with honour.'''' 
 
 How beautiful the injunctions which accompany the bequests of 
 the dying patriot ! He had preserved his own sword pure and un- 
 sullied ; he had guarded the stainless emblems of a nation's grati- 
 tude as a priceless treasure ; and when he was approached by the 
 great earthly conqueror of all mankind, he gracefully surrendered 
 them into chosen hands, with a prayer and a command that they 
 should never be dishonoured. 
 
 Nor was he thoughtless of her who had watched his bedside for 
 years. In recognising and confirming a marriage gift to the wife 
 of his adopted son, he said : " This gift and bequest is made as a 
 token of my great affection for her, a memento of her uniform at- 
 tention to me, and kindness on all occasions. When worn down 
 with sickness, pain, and debility, she has been more than a daughter 
 to me, and I hope that she will never be disturbed by any one in 
 the enjoyment of this gift and bequest." 
 
 The exalted sphere of the ladies which his heart appreciated, his 
 hand was ever ready to acknowledge. He successfully threatened 
 the recreant soldier with the fear of their frown as a preventive of 
 desertion — he was accustomed to speak of them as " last at the cross, 
 first at the sepulchre, and foremost in the cause of justice and hu- 
 manity" — their defence and protection was his watchword on the 
 plains of Chalmette, and when, after the lapse of a quarter of a 
 century, he revisited those scenes of his early struggles for the last 
 time, the charming daughters of the sunny south, those whom he 
 had protected from the ruthless invader in their infant cradles, re- 
 ceived him on carpets of roses, and loaded his venerable brow with 
 kisses of gratitude. Chivalrous to the last, he makes them the um- 
 pire before whom American valour shall become emulous upon the 
 battle-field for the heir-looms of patriotism. 
 
 But as the last touches of the pencil give beauty and fidelity to 
 the picture, so the closing scenes of the veteran's life become the 
 most interesting portion of his history. As in earlier life he was 
 the brave and dauntless soldier in defence of his country's rights, 
 so he became the brave and dauntless soldier of the cross. From 
 his childhood he had revered Christianity, and often dwelt with 
 grateful emotions on the tender and prayerful solicitude of his pious 
 mother, during his boyhood, for his spiritual welfare. And even in 
 the turbulent and boisterous periods of his career, when all his 
 energies were concentrated in the conduct of sanguinary British 
 28* 
 
330 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 and Indian wars, although vehement and impetuous of spirit, the 
 purest religious feelings animated his heart and shaped his inclina- 
 tions. There is not in our language a more beautiful form of 
 prayer and thanksgiving than is contained in a portion of his con- 
 gratulatory and farewell address to his soldiers at New Orleans after 
 the battle of the eighth — meekly giving all the glory of the victo- 
 ry to the God of battles, in whom he had put his trust. I have 
 heard an old warrior against the Indians say, that on the eve of one 
 of the most deadly conflicts in the Creek nation, when they were 
 on watch for the enemy, whom they knew to be near, and when 
 an order had been given that there should be no unnecessary noise 
 in camp, one of the guard approached the general and complained 
 that a soldier was praying unnecessarily loud. " God forbid," said 
 he, "that praying should be considered an unnecessary noise in 
 my camp." 
 
 These feelings ripened with age into a firmly settled conviction 
 and conversion ; and for the last eight years he who had led and 
 directed his countrymen on so many well fought fields, who had 
 humbled the proud British lion upon our south-western shore, and 
 sent him howling home to his sea-girt den — who had wrung the 
 unwilling acknowledgment of our country's rights from the crowned 
 heads of Europe — might be seen upon the Sabbath, when his health 
 would permit, bowing with his neighbourhood circle in deep hu- 
 mility and humble adoration before the little altar which he had 
 caused to be planted a short distance from his house, devotedly and 
 sincerely partaking of the sacred emblems of faith. I witnessed 
 this — but I witnessed no richly embroidered carpets on which to 
 walk — no silken and velvet cushions on which to kneel — no gor- 
 geous purples in which to robe the chief — no pomp — no parade- 
 no insignia of superiority or power, like those which glitter within 
 the royal chapels of princes and potentates. All was plainness, 
 simplicity, piety, Christian purity. He fostered that little church 
 with a father's solicitude and protection ; and one of his last wishes 
 was that it might be sustained for ever. 
 
 In the full enjoyment of his mental faculties, he died as he had 
 lived — undismayed, unterrified. Even death, at whose approach 
 mankind are prone to shudder, though he had long tortured the 
 veteran's frame with the most excruciating pains, as if to apply 
 the severest tests to his resigned spirit, could not shake his nerve 
 or make his resolution tremble. He had spoken of the coming 
 event for many months as one would naturally speak of a journey 
 to a distant country not soon to return, and had taken great care in 
 the adjustment of his temporal affairs, arranging all his papers, and 
 leaving them where they would be accessible to the historian of 
 hi? country. 
 
 We rarely see a happier combination of all the virtues which 
 
Harris's eulogy. 331 
 
 belong to man than the character of Jackson exhibited; and when 
 the faithful historic pen shall institute its comparisons between him 
 and the celebrated heroes and statesmen of antiquity, who favoured 
 the acquisition of territory by conquest and not by the influence of 
 sound opinion upon the minds of the millions, whose object was to 
 tyrannize over the world, and not to diffuse the blessings of free in- 
 stitutions amongst the governed, who were more ambitious of ephe- 
 meral popularity and power than of permanent welfare — the slaves 
 of princely pride and passion, and not the faithful and accountable 
 servants of their countrymen — who lived as reckless adventurers, 
 and died by the hands of violence — when these lines of contrast 
 shall be drawn, as they will be drawn, by the pen of the impartial 
 annalist, we shall need no lofty pillar of Trajan, no sculptured 
 arches, no massive column of Napoleon, to commemorate his deeds 
 of glory, for they will be enshrined in our hearts, and transmitted 
 to the latest generation of our posterity. 
 
 Had he been faultless, he had been more than man. Do you 
 remember that he had any imperfections? Where, on earth, may 
 we look for perfection ?- Error is one of the first offspring of 
 humanity — and if in his career you have discovered indiscretions, 
 you will at least admit, that they were of that class which " some- 
 times serve us well when better judgment fails." 
 
 He is gone. " I bequeath," said he, in his last will and testa- 
 ment, " my body to the dust whence it came, and my soul to God 
 who gave it, hoping for a happy immortality through the atoning 
 merits of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world. My 
 desire is, that my body be buried by the side of my dear departed 
 wife, in the garden of the Hermitage, in the vault there prepared." 
 
 In the circle of an ever-watchful and devoted family, he expired 
 on a summer's evening of our holy Sabbath. He had said it was 
 probably the last he would be permitted to enjoy on earth, and had 
 called his household to his bedside to tell them of the pleasant paths 
 of righteousness, and to express a dying Christian's hope that he 
 might meet them all again in Heaven. 
 
 The funeral orator at his burial, held up a small copy of the 
 Bible which had been literally worn out by the veteran's own hand, 
 who was accustomed to consult it freely, to listen to its teachings, 
 to believe in its promises, and to regard it as the only anchor of his 
 spiritual safety. 
 
 It was as he had desired. In the vault, which he had years be- 
 fore caused to be prepared for its reception, his body was buried by 
 the side of his dear departed wife, in the garden of the Hermitage, 
 amongst ample beds of variegated flowers in full bloom, cultivated 
 and arranged with taste and elegance under the eye of his " more 
 than daughter" — a spot on which nature had been encouraged to 
 lavish the brightest charms of Flora — in all its beauty, simplicity, 
 
332 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 arid sweetness, more acceptable for the remains of the plain repub- 
 lican patriot, than the marble sarcophagus of Septimus Severus, 
 which in life he had rejected with a freeman's indignation — nay, 
 than the proudest of the Egyptian pyramids. 
 
 Ey a few of his aged friends and compatriots in arms, his body 
 was silently laid in its last consecrated spot — a select choir chanted 
 his favourite psalm as a requiem, and the gallant military corps, 
 which had long borne aloft his portrait on their banner, discharged 
 their musketry over his resting place. 
 
 It was an hour of tears. Thousands were there to witness it. 
 As the veteran soldier, with his whitened locks, lowered the re- 
 mains of his old general into their last Ions home, the tear which 
 trembled on his eye-lid and then trickled down his furrowed cheek, 
 told the beholder that it was from the fountain of deep, deep grief. 
 
 As the throng pressed nearer the spot to witness the last solem- 
 nities over the hallowed relics of their country's benefactor, a 
 keener sense of their loss was manifest, and few, indeed, were 
 tearless in that assembly. 
 
 "To live with fame, the gods allow 
 To many. But to die willi equal lustre, 
 Is a gilt, which Heaven selects 
 From all the choicest boons of fate, 
 And with a sparing hand, on few bestows." 
 
 Like the Father of his country, he descended to the grave loaded 
 with all the civil and military honours of his countrymen — like him, 
 he welcomed the battle-field, welcomed the olive branch of peace, 
 welcomed the public service, welcomed retirement, welcomed life, 
 welcomed death, and abides in the grateful hearts of millions of 
 freemen. Like him, his memor} r will bloom upon our altars for 
 ages and ages with perennial freshness. The mother shall teach her 
 infant to lisp their names in unison — the father shall teach him to 
 emulate their sterling virtues. An admiring posterity shall make 
 frequent pilgrimages to Mount Vernon in the East, and the Her- 
 mitage in the West, to linger around the mounds which contain the 
 ashes of the illustrious dead, to commune with the spirits of the 
 immortal Washington and Jackson. 
 
EULOGY 
 
 DELIVERED AT POTTSVILLE, PA., JULY 10, 1845, 
 
 BY 
 
 Rev. D. D. LORE 
 
 We are assembled, my countrymen, in vast numbers, to pay the 
 tribute that true greatness demands of justice. And the honour- 
 able part that your partiality has assigned to me on this solemn and 
 imposing occasion, is "to deliver a eulogy on the life and charac- 
 ter of General Andrew Jackson." 
 
 Eulogies are the spontaneous emotions of the human heart, ex- 
 cited by the virtuous and brave deeds of our fellow men. Hence, 
 they are coeval with the history of mankind. The bards of a coun- 
 try were the primitive eulogists of its heroes. They were em- 
 ployed to compose and rehearse verses in honour of the heroic 
 achievements of princes and brave men. They accompanied the 
 armies to battle, and took their stand in some conspicuous place, 
 and when the warrior fell, covered with honourable wounds, he 
 turned his dying eye to the poet, who made him immortal in song. 
 The effect of these panegyrics on the national character was inde- 
 scribable. They placed glory and renown before the warrior, and 
 on the day of battle excited his courage to perfect enthusiasm. 
 
 History informs us that when Edward I. of England, invaded 
 North Wales, he found it impossible to establish his authority, while 
 the Welsh bards were permitted to live. For they, by rehearsing in 
 their songs the glorious achievements of the ancient Britons, kept 
 alive an heroic spirit of freedom and independence. He therefore 
 cruelly ordered the minstrels to be massacred wherever they were 
 found. And in the ancient republics of Greece and Rome, eulogy 
 was one of the strongest influences in exercise, for the preservation 
 of the spirit of patriotism. It is said of the latter in the time of 
 Augustus, they had swelled into two thousand volumes. 
 
 Eulogies, indeed, are intimately connected with republican in- 
 stitutions. They are the tributes paid bv a brave and free people, 
 
 (333) 
 
334 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 to worth, to wisdom, and to virtue. They are, in a word, republi- 
 can monuments, more durable than 
 
 "The Heaven-aspiring pyramid, the proud 
 Triumphal arch, and all that e'er upheld 
 The worshipp'd names of hoar antiquity, "- 
 
 Transmitting to deathless fame, the well-earned renown of pure 
 patriotism. 
 
 They had their origin in truth, and in the noblest feelings of the. 
 human soul, but have been too often debased to the ignoble service 
 of adulation. Even Rome herself, who had cherished, sepulchred, 
 and eulogised, so much true wisdom, virtue, and worth, stooped at 
 last, ingloriously, to flatter power and honour crimes ; and servilelv 
 said to the infamous Nero, " Choose, Caesar, what place you will 
 among the immortal gods. Will you sway the sceptre of Jupiter, 
 or mount the chariot of Apollo ? There is not a deity who will nol 
 yield his empire unto you, and count it an honour to resign in youi 
 favour." When eulogy so high-born is thus degraded, it becomes 
 an offence to the truly magnanimous. May the tongue of the 
 American orator cleave to the roof of his mouth, and his right arrr 
 fall withered to his side, who shall first attempt to bestow Americans 
 praise so unworthily ! 
 
 But when eulogies are discriminately bestowedj their influence is 
 most salutary in a republican state. They should be pronounced b) 
 the voice of the nation ; by the voice of the whole nation. Anc 
 then they will excite to deeds of noble emulation, to national virtue 
 and to love of country. A nation's favour should be sold only al 
 the highest and most honourable price. It should be made an ob- 
 ject worthy the ambition of her noblest sons, and when won, shoulc 
 never be withheld. This would be an evil only surpassed by the 
 opposite extreme. When a republic shall consent for her great mei 
 to go down to the grave unknelled and unheralded, it will be a da) 
 ominous of evil to her institutions. 
 
 It was the custom of the ancient Egyptians, to bring the charac- 
 ters of rulers and subjects after their death before a tribunal of 
 judges, where they were solemnly acquitted or condemned, ac- 
 cording to their merits. The profligate citizen and the wicket 
 tyrant, were delivered up to eternal infamy. But the fathers of th< 
 people, and those who had laboured for the public good, receivec 
 those funeral panegyrics and honours due to their virtuous deeds 
 At a royal funeral, the ceremony was as follows : Accusations wen 
 first received against the deceased. The priest then rose to pro- 
 nounce the eulogy, and celebrate the good actions of the monarch 
 If he had reigned well, the innumerable multitude assemblet 
 answered the priest with loud acclamations ; if he had reigned ill 
 a general murmur ensued, — and such kings were deprived by thei 
 people of burial, even though they had erected proud mausoleum 
 
lore's eulogy. 335 
 
 to receive their bones. A custom thus worthy the country in 
 which the arts and sciences were cradled, and in which Homer, 
 Plato, Solon, and Lycurgus, were schooled. 
 
 It is thus, fellow-citizens, that we would perform our task to-day. 
 Will you by your murmur warn us to cease — or by your loud ac- 
 claim, warrant us to proceed to speak of Andrew Jackson as an 
 American general, statesman, and sage. (Great applause.) 
 
 Fellow-citizens : — The man whose memory we have met to 
 honour this day, was worthy this great national demonstration of 
 respect. True, " he was born to fortune and fame unknown." He 
 boasted not a long line of ancestors ; he paraded no pompous titles; 
 he claimed no royal prerogatives. He needed not these adventitious 
 circumstances to make him great. He was one of "nature's noble- 
 men!" 
 
 You will expect of me, as a matter of course, a sketch of his 
 history. 
 
 Andrew Jackson was an American by birth. Born in South Caro- 
 lina, in the Waxhaw settlement, on the 15th of March, 1767. At 
 an early age, he was left fatherless. The spreading ravages of the 
 Revolutionary war drove him from the academy of science, and at 
 the early age of thirteen, he laid aside his books for the implements 
 of war, and became a soldier of the Revolution. At the hallowed 
 altar, the pure flame of patriotism was kindled in young Jackson's 
 bosom, which burned brightly and intensely through a long life. 
 He was a prisoner of war at fourteen, when, for claiming his right 
 as such, and resenting an indignity, he received an honourable 
 wound from a brutal officer. One of his brothers was already slain 
 in battle, and the other was now fatally wounded by his side. He 
 was soon exchanged as a prisoner of war by the exertions of his 
 affectionate mother, and returned home ; but it was only to see his 
 only surviving relative, that mother, die. 
 
 We see him again, at the peace of 1783, emerging from the 
 storms of the Revolution, an orphan boy. Bereft of all his kindred, 
 without patronage or property, alone in the world. And what was 
 still worse, he had formed profligate habits. How exceedingly un- 
 promising were the prospects of this stripling at the age of eighteen 
 years. But there was a " divinity within him that shaped his ends." 
 An ethereal spirit that could not be borne down by adversity. At 
 this turning point in his history, he entered as a law student in 
 Salisbury, North Carolina, and in two years after, he was admitted 
 to the bar as practising attorney. He immediately repaired to 
 Nashville, Tennessee, where he established himself, and acquired 
 honour and profit by his profession. 
 
 We now arrive at the commencement of his public career. His 
 first public appointment to office was by Washington, as attorney- 
 general for the district. He was still a young man. At the age 
 
336 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 of twenty-nine, he was honoured with a seat in the convention 
 assembled to form a constitution for the state of Tennessee. The 
 same year he was chosen to represent that state in Congress, in the 
 House of Representatives. At the age of thirty, he was elected to 
 the Senate of the United States. After two years' services as 
 Senator, he resigned. He was immediately appointed to the bench 
 of the Supreme Court of his state. This office he also resigned as 
 soon as practicable. In 1811, we find him in the character of 
 negotiator with the Creek Indians, and when the treaty of Spain, 
 ceding the Floridas, was ratified in 1821, he was appointed by the 
 president to receive the provinces, and to establish the government. 
 He was then offered by President Monroe, the post of minister 
 plenipotentiary to the court of Mexico, but refused upon republican 
 principles. In 1822, such was his reputation at home, that the 
 general assembly of Tennessee recommended Andrew Jackson for 
 president of these United States. And in the following year, he 
 was elected a second time to the United States Senate, which 
 honour he a second time resigned, on being nominated by the people 
 for the presidency. In 1828, he was elected to this high office by 
 a majority in the electoral college of more than two to one. And 
 in 1832, he was re-elected by an unequalled and overwhelming 
 popular vote, amidst the enthusiastic plaudits of the people ; our 
 own state giving him a majority of some fifty thousand votes! In 
 1837, he again retired from public office to the Hermitage, on the 
 banks of the Cumberland river. 
 
 Such is a brief sketch of the political career of Andrew Jackson, 
 which of itself shows that his countrymen trusted him, honoured 
 him, and loved him. That they esteemed him worthy, and cheer- 
 fully assigned to him a place among the first of those whom they 
 delighted to honour. And the civil duties and offices crowded upon 
 him from the age of twenty-five to the years of threescore and 
 ten, were enough themselves to have filled up, with unceasing ac- 
 tivity, the full measure of the days of a common man. Contrast 
 the orphan boy of South Carolina, who, at the age of nineteen years, 
 was penniless, friendless, and professionless, with Andrew Jackson, 
 the politician, rising regularly, through every gradation of office, 
 from that of district attorney to the presidency of the United States, 
 and is there not evidence enough to convince all, that he whose 
 memory we this day honour was no common man ? 
 
 No! he was an w/icommon man. He filled another measure of 
 days. He lived another life. To justify this, we will now glance 
 at his military character. Though he was not, like the great Han- 
 nibal, taken, at the early age of twelve years, to the altar to swear 
 eternal hostility to the enemies of his country, yet, at the age of 
 thirteen, we find him a soldier engaged in battle, a prisoner of war, 
 and mingling his young blood with that of the patriots of " '76." 
 He was thus early dedicated to the service of his country, and the 
 
337 
 
 pledge then given, and sealed with blood, was ever most faithfully 
 kept. When thirty-two years of age, he was chosen, by the field- 
 officers of the Tennessee militia, their major-general. It was in 
 this character that he conducted a most successful campaign against 
 the Creek Indians, headed by the celebrated Tecumseh, and abetted 
 by British officers. Here he first displa}'ed the qualities of a great 
 general. Such was the vigour and celerity of his movements, that 
 in six months, with the loss of only ninety men killed on the field, 
 he fought three pitched battles, slew thirteen hundred of the ene- 
 my, took a large number of prisoners, and closed the war on his 
 own terms. And he did this under the most unfavourable circum- 
 stances. His own health feeble, his troops raw and undisciplined, 
 his supplies cut off, until, through want of food, the militia deter- 
 termined to desert, and the volunteers mutinied, and were only 
 checked in their retreat by the personal courage of their general. 
 The signal abilities of the Tennessee commander in this war drew 
 the attention of the general government, and a commission of ma- 
 jor-general in the United States army was forwarded to him in 
 May, 1814. 
 
 In the summer of this year, on his own responsibility, he scoured 
 the Spanish possessions in the Floridas, and dislodged our enemies, 
 both British and Indians, who availed themselves of that neutral 
 ground for shelter. With a sagacity characteristic of the man, he 
 already anticipated the attack on New Orleans. He therefore has- 
 tened to that city and established his head-quarters on the first of 
 December. He found it in the most defenceless condition, and 
 what was still worse, "filled with British spies and stipendiaries." 
 He appealed to the citizens, to the governor, and the legislature, 
 then in session to exert themselves, for their defence. His ianguage 
 was, " With energy and expedition all is safe — delay further and all 
 is lost." He suggested to the legislature the propriety of suspend- 
 ing the habeas corpus act. But there was not time for their slow 
 deliberations, and he at once proclaimed the city of New Orleans 
 to be under martial law. He closed the halls of legislation, and 
 arrested the judge of the United States Court, saying, " I must be 
 brief, there is treason." And the hastening events fully justified 
 his expedition. 
 
 He wrote to General Coffee, " You must not sleep until you ar- 
 rive within striking distance." The order was obeyed, and Gene- 
 ral Coffee marched eight hundred men eighty miles the last day, a 
 march unparalleled in the annals of war. On the 23d of Decem- 
 ber, at one o'clock P. M., General Jackson received information 
 that the enemy had landed, and were marching upon the city. He 
 resolved to meet them that night. He did so, and gave them battle, 
 and made a bloody mark over which they were not permitted to 
 pass. The preparations and skirmishings between this and the de- 
 oq 
 
338 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 cisive engagement convinced the enemy that they had no mean foe 
 to contend against. Jackson seldom slept ; he was always at his 
 post, and with the keen glance, and the celerity of the noble bird 
 whose emblem he bore, he detected and defeated every movement 
 of the enemy. 
 
 The morning of the eighth of January dawned. A thick fog 
 concealed the movements of the advancing army until they were 
 within a short distance of the American intrenchments. It was 
 commanded by Sir E. Packenham, in person, and was pressing on- 
 ward. The odds was fearful. The flower of the British forces, 
 the veteran warriors ot England, were there, just from the battle- 
 fields of Europe, flushed with victory, with their honours thick 
 upon them. The steady advance of that well-disciplined army 
 was majestic, and awfully grand. But it was all in vain. That 
 noble general was uttering his last command, that noble army was 
 advancing to certain death. British honour was about to be tramp- 
 led the second time in the American dust ! They advance — but 
 see, they waver ! The command of the American general is given. 
 The rattling hail-stones of death bursts forth and dashes that noble 
 army as with a tornado of destruction. The fatal fire of the western 
 marksman was terribly destructive. The defeat total. And the 
 enemy retreated, leaving thousands dead on the field. General 
 Jackson was victorious, New Orleans was saved. The power of 
 the enemy was broken, and all accomplished with the loss of but 
 thirteen men. 
 
 Never did the glory of a victory more exclusively belong to a 
 general than did the victory of New Orleans to General Jackson. 
 And here is " glory enough." We need trace the military history 
 of General Jackson no further. We need not add another leaf to 
 the wreath of victory that binds his brow ! The fame of the hero 
 of New Orleans is imperishable. 
 
 But Andrew Jackson was great in moral qualities. The ener- 
 getic sublimity of his moral character has never been questioned, 
 or surpassed. His high resolve, his inflexible decision, and his de- 
 fiance of danger were a sure guarantee for the faithful discharge of 
 every duty. 
 
 Courage and firmness were the most remarkable traits in his cha- 
 racter. Indeed, they formed the star of his destiny, and it was 
 ever in the ascendant from the time it first became conspicuous on 
 the banks of the Mississippi, until it was lost in the light of a 
 brighter day, on the banks of the Cumberland. And that his cou- 
 rage and firmness were of the highest order, arising from the press- 
 ing obligations of duty, we are warranted in believing, because 
 (hey acted uniformly, and never faltered under the most trying cir- 
 cumstances. These qualities when merely constitutional, often fail 
 
lore's eulogy. 339 
 
 when most needed. But in Andrew Jackson they were equal to 
 every exigency. 
 
 When he saw the right he approved it, and in pursuance of it 
 feared no responsibility. He dared to disobey the voice of the 
 highest authority, where obedience to the mandate would have 
 been traitorous to the cause of humanity and justice. He dared to 
 throw himself in front of a half-famished, mutinous, and deserting 
 army, and arrest the progress, at the peril of marching over his 
 dead body, when the protection of helpless women and children, 
 from the merciless savage, require it. He dared, fearless of the 
 rampant lion, to arrest and execute foreign subjects when the peace 
 of his country demanded the hazard. And had the plea been " I 
 am a Roman citizen," in the best days of that mistress of the world, 
 their fate would have been unaltered. 
 
 As a civilian, this trait was no less conspicuous. When adjust- 
 ing the affairs of Florida, in order to protect female orphans in 
 their rights, he hesitated not to arrest and imprison the Spanish 
 Governor Callava. And when elected to the chief-magistracy of 
 our republic, it is well known our foreign relations called for the 
 utmost decision and promptitude of action. And } r ou also know 
 how speedily those relations were adjusted. When internal disor- 
 ders threatened the dismemberment of our Union, the dictate of 
 his courageous and firm soul was : " Our federal Union — it must 
 be preserved." 
 
 But he was also distinguished for his benevolence and humanity. 
 His charge to his army, when about to engage a savage foe, is the 
 language of a truly benevolent and humane man. " We must con- 
 quer as men who owe nothing to chance, and who, in the midst of 
 victory, can still be mindful of what is due to humanity." At the 
 bloody battle of the " Horseshoe," an incident occurred illustrating 
 these traits that shines out like a bright star in a dark sky. It was 
 this : A living infant was found on the breast of its dead mother. 
 Of this infant General Jackson took personal charge, adopted it 
 into his own family, and reared and ever protected the Indian or- 
 phan. This touching incident reflects more honour on the heart 
 of the general than the entire glory of the Creek war. And in 
 the case of the New Orleans fine, the dignity of the man and his 
 generosity are most happliy blended. The fine imposed he paid, and 
 the amount raised by the indignant citizens was, at his request, be- 
 nevolently appropriated. 
 
 Such is an imperfect sketch of the political, military, and moral 
 character of Andrew Jackson. 
 
 His achievements and his virtues have inscribed his name as se- 
 cond on the scroll of his country's fame, and enshrined his memory 
 in the hearts of the American people. Side by side, in our history 
 and our hearts, he shall have a place with our own incomparable 
 
340 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 Washington. Though unequal, they were not altogether unlike. 
 The one was as fond of* the banks of the Cumberland, as the other 
 was of the banks of the Potomac. 
 
 Did Washington voluntarily lay aside his honours, and retire to 
 Mount Vernon? Four times did Jackson resign civil authority to 
 return to rural occupations. From the conduct of three great and 
 successful campaigns was he followed to his quiet home by the ac- 
 clamations of his countrymen. And without a longing wish, after 
 filling the highest office in the gift of the people, for the longest 
 term of years, he returned to the Hermitage to die in peace ! ! 
 
 Such, my countrymen, was the man we mourn. But there is 
 joy amidst our sorrows. Andrew Jackson's greatness was completed 
 by his Christian faith. The top stone was brought forth with 
 shoutings of " grace, grace unto it !" Had he departed this life 
 without a hope of a blessed immortality, our task upon this occa- 
 sion, would have been a mournful one indeed. But like the cloud- 
 less sun, increasing in magnitude and magnificence as it goes down 
 beyond his western tomb, so was the decline of his sun of life. It 
 rose with the dawn of our national day ; its upward ascent arrested 
 attention ; its burning meridian magnificence fixed our gaze ; but 
 its setting has exceeded its morning promise, or its noon-day glories. 
 He died a Christian. Therefore, my beloved countrymen, " com- 
 fort yourselves with these, words." 
 
 His Christian faith arrested particular attention in his latter days. 
 With characteristic wisdom he closed his political career, retired to 
 the silent shades of the Hermitage, and there prepared to die. And 
 the religious responses from that quiet retreat, should be received 
 by us with more than oracular authority. The sentiments of the 
 dying patriot and sage, should be treasured up in the innermost 
 sanctuary of our hearts. He was a Christian, as he was every- 
 thing else, decidedly and wholly. No important interest of Chris- 
 tianity seems to have been overlooked by him. The Bible, the 
 Sabbath, and the Sunday School, all received the hearty approval 
 and commendation of Andrew Jackson. 
 
 Of the word of God, he said : " The Bible is true. Upon that 
 sacred volume, I rest my hope of eternal salvation, through the 
 merits and blood of our blessed Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ." 
 His old Bible, thumbed and worn by constant use, he held up in his 
 right hand, and said to Doctor Edgar : " This book, sir, is the bul- 
 wark of our republican institutions, the anchor of our present and 
 future safety." Remember the sentiment, American Republicans : I 
 will repeat it. It is a voice that comes to us on the wings of the 
 sighing winds from the far off Hermitage : " This book, sir, is the 
 bulwark of our republican institutions, the anchor of ovr present 
 and future safety." It is said his Bible was ever by his side. Like 
 the pillar of the cloud, the symbol of Jehovah's covenant with 
 
lore's eulogy. 341 
 
 Israel in the wilderness, it was moved when he moved, it rested 
 where he rested. 
 
 As the light of the Sabbath broke over his earthly habitation, he 
 remarked, " This day is the holy Sabbath ordained by God, and 
 set apart to be devoted to his worship and praise, I always attended 
 service at church when I could, but now I can go no more." 
 
 He charged his family to continue the instruction of the poor at 
 the Sabbath School. This new system of instruction, he said, which 
 blended the duties of religion with those of humanity, he considered 
 as of vast importance. He seemed anxious to impress the family 
 with these sentiments. And in his last moments, two of his grand- 
 children were sent for from the Sabbath School to receive his 
 blessing. 
 
 Here was the full-souled and intelligent Christian. He made 
 the Bible the rule of faith and practice. He made the Bible the 
 foundation of the liberties of his country. Observance of the holy 
 Sabbath day — attendance upon the services of the sanctuary — and 
 the religious education of the young, were all inculcated by pre- 
 cept and practice. These are the sentiments, my countrymen, that 
 I would have you treasure up in your hearts, and exemplify in 
 vour lives. What a testimony have we from the lips of Andrew 
 Jackson to the truth of our holy religion. He was great because 
 he was good ! 
 
 Nor did the dying patriarch serve his God for nought. The hero 
 of Marathon was left to die in a dungeon. Caius Marius, in his 
 old a°r, was driven to seek shelter amidst the ruins of Carthage. 
 Woolsey was left to die, lamenting : — " Had I but served my God 
 as dili^entlv as I have served the king, he would not have given 
 me over in my grey hairs." But Jackson's latter end was different 
 from all this. He had served his country and he had served his 
 God. And now, at the death-bed of the patriot and Christian, the 
 sympathies of both worlds combined for his support. 
 
 When questioned, a few days before his death, as to his future 
 prospects, he said : " My lamp of life is nearly out ; the last glim- 
 mer has come ; I am ready to depart when called." And on the 
 day of his death, but a few hours before life's last struggle, recover- 
 ing from a swoon, and finding his family around his bed in the 
 deepest grief, he said : " My dear children, do not grieve for me. 
 It is true, I am going to leave you. I am well aware of my situa- 
 tion. I have suffered much bodily pain, but my sufferings are but 
 as nothing, compared with what our blessed Saviour endured upon 
 that accursed cross, that we might all be saved who put our trust in 
 him." He then calmly proceeded to take his final farewell of his 
 family, individually. After which he addressed them for near half 
 an hour on the truth and comforts of the Christian religion, and 
 closed by saying : " My dear children, and friends, and servants, I 
 29 * 
 
34-2 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 trust to meet you all in Heaven, both white and black ! both white 
 and black! /" And at six o'clock in the evening of the 8th day of 
 June, he died full of davs and full of honours. In death we look 
 upon him 
 
 "As some tall tower or lofty mountain's brow 
 Detains the sun, illustrious from their height, 
 The good man dying, rears his august head. 
 Sweet peace and Heavenly hope, and humble faith 
 Divinely beam on his exalted soul — 
 Destruction gild and crown him for the skies 
 With incommunicable lustre bright." 
 
 Such was the man, and such his death, whose virtues and whose 
 services have called us together on this occasion. Long may his 
 memory live. Long may his virtues be cherished and practised by 
 American Citizens. 
 
A 
 
 DISCOURSE ON THE DUTY OF A PATRIOT, 
 
 WITH 
 SOME ALLUSIONS ON THE LIFE AND DEATH 
 
 OF 
 
 ANDREW JACKSON; 
 
 PRONOUNCED JULY 6, 1845, 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE W. BETHUNE, 
 
 MINISTER OF THE THIRD REFORMED DUTCH CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 "For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he 
 commanded our fathers that they should make them known to their children; 
 that the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be 
 born, who should arise and declare them to their children, that they might set 
 their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments." 
 — Psalm lxxviii. 5, 6, 7. 
 
 Among our many national sins, there is none more likely to pro- 
 voke divine chastisement, yet less considered or repented of, even 
 by Christians, than ingratitude for political blessings. That there 
 are evils among us, no one will deny ; that changes might be made 
 for the better, it were unreasonable to doubt ; and, concerning me- 
 thods of removing evil, or working good, we may differ widely, 
 yet honestly. Evil is inseparable from human nature, the best hu- 
 man schemes are capable of improvement, and human opinions 
 must be various, because they are fallible. It is a narrow, unthank- 
 ful spirit, which, brooding over imperfections, or sighing after 
 greater advantages, or bitterly condemning all who think not the 
 same way, refuses to perceive and acknowledge the vast benefits 
 we actually enjoy. Never was there a revolution at once so just 
 and so successful as that which won our country's independence ; 
 never, except in the Bible, have the rights of man been so clearly 
 and truly defined as in our constitution ; never did greater success 
 attend a social experiment than has followed ours. Since the es- 
 tablishment of our confederacy, tumults, insurrections, and violent 
 changes, have been busy in all the civilized world besides. Throne 
 
 (343) 
 
344 MONUMEiNT TO JACKSON. 
 
 after throne has fallen, and dynasties have been built up on the 
 bloody ruins of dynasties. In some nations the people have wrung, 
 by force, partial concessions from hereditary rule ; in others, after 
 convulsive, misdirected efforts, they have been crushed again by 
 the iron hoof of despotism; nor is the voice of a prophet needed 
 to foretell a long, desperate struggle of uprising humanity with the 
 powers of political darkness ; while the bloody discords and con- 
 stant confusion of other republics on the same continent with our- 
 selves, demonstrate the incompatibility of freedom with ignorance 
 and superstition. Ours is now, with the exception of the Russian 
 and British (if, indeed, the passage of the Reform Bill was not an 
 organic change), older than any monarchical government in Christ- 
 endom. The increase of our population from less than three mil- 
 lions to twenty, in seventy years, multiplies many times any former 
 example ; yet, notwithstanding the enormous migration to us from 
 various countries, where free principles are unknown, our wide 
 land has more than enough room for all : growth in numbers has 
 been a chief cause of our growth in wealth, and our laws, strong 
 as they are liberal, have proved themselves sufficient to compose, 
 maintain and rule all in concord, prosperity and power. You will 
 search in vain for another example of a vast nation governed, with- 
 out troops or armed police, by their own will. It is not five years 
 since, that our people, spread out over an immense territory, after 
 a contest in which the utmost enthusiasm excited both parties, 
 changed their rulers. Yet not a bayonet was fixed, nor a cannon 
 pointed, nor a barricade raised, to guard the place of suffrage. The 
 ballot, falling noiselessly as snow upon the rock, achieved the re- 
 sult. Within the last twelvemonth, the stupendous process has 
 been repeated as peaceably and safely. Each of the great political 
 sects, which divide the popular vote, has triumphed and been 
 beaten. Much there has been to censure in the harsh recrimina- 
 tion and unfraternal bigotry on either side ; but when the decision 
 was reached, though the long-rolling swells which succeed the 
 storm did not at once subside, and here and there some violent 
 partisan may have betrayed his vexation, the surface became calm, 
 and the noise soon died away. Every true patriot, submissive to 
 the oracle of the polls, whether wisdom or error, said in his heart, 
 
 Gon BLESS THE PEOrLE ! 
 
 Our difficulties, real or supposed, have arisen out of our advan- 
 tages, for good an d evil are mixed with all human affairs. The 
 freedom of those institutions under which we live, has its price, 
 which must be paid, so long as man is prone to abuse, by impatience 
 and excess, those favours of Almighty God which yield happiness 
 only when they are used moderately and religiously. Elated by 
 prosperity, we have forced our growth too fast. We have attempted 
 by plausible inventions to transcend the laws of trade and produc- 
 
bethune's discourse. 3-±5 
 
 tion. We have complicated the machinery of our interests until 
 our clear, simple constitution, has become, in the hands of sophisti- 
 cating politicians, a riddle of mysteries. The limits of habitation 
 have been enlarged beyond the blessings of church and school-house. 
 Vices and faults, peculiar to new settlements, have reached the 
 heart of our legislation. To carry on our far-grasping schemes, we 
 have strained our credit till it broke. Freedom of speech and of 
 the press, has been abused to licentiousness by prejudice, rashness, 
 and selfish ambition. Acknowledging as we do the rights of con- 
 science in their broadest meaning, even the holy name of religion 
 has been dragged upon the arena of party. 
 
 Our republic is not a paradise ; our countrymen, like ourselves, 
 are not angels, but frail, erring men. Our history has been an ex- 
 periment. Mistakes have been made and will be made. It is thus 
 that we are to learn. Shall we, in coward skepticism, overlook 
 our immense advantages to hang our fears upon a few faults, or 
 prognosticate the failure of a system which has accomplished so 
 much, because it shares with others the imperfections of humanity ? 
 Is there a sober-minded man among us, who would be willing to 
 encounter the oppressions of what are called strong governments, 
 that he might escape from under our present system 1 Our faults 
 are our own, and our misfortunes are consequences of our faults ; 
 but our political advantages are God's rich gifts, which it becomes 
 us thankfully to receive and piously to improve. All our evils 
 have their legitimate remedies, and there is no danger which may 
 not be avoided by a wise care. Instead, therefore, of querulous 
 fears and ungrateful discontent, the Christian patriot should zeal- 
 ously inquire what he can do to secure and advance the best wel- 
 fare of our beloved land. Our holy text is full of instruction to 
 this end. 
 
 The psalmist is describing the policy of God with Israel, the 
 people whom he wished to know no king but himself, and there- 
 fore, the only safe policy for any people who would preserve their 
 liberties from the encroachment of despotic rule. 
 
 " He established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in 
 Israel, which he commanded our fathers that they should make 
 them known to their children ; that the generation to come might 
 know them, even the children which should be born ; who should 
 arise and declare them to their children, that they might set their 
 hopes in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his com- 
 mandments." 
 
 We see here, 
 
 First : The character of a safe and h&bfjt teople. 
 
 " They set their hopes in God ; they forget not the works of 
 God : they keep his commandments." 
 
346 monument to jackson. 
 
 Secondly : The means which God has appointed for culti- 
 vating THIS CHARACTER. 
 
 " He established a law in Jacob, and appointed a testimony in 
 Israel." 
 
 Thirdly : The obligation upon a Christian patriot arising 
 
 FROM THIS PROVIDENCE OF JeHOVAII. 
 
 " He commanded our fathers that they should make them known 
 to their children ; that the generation to come might know them, 
 even the children which might be born ; who should arise and de- 
 clare them to their children." 
 
 First : The character, of a safe and happy people. 
 
 They "set their hopes in God." The man who looks to God as 
 the source of his welfare, is lifted above temptation within and 
 without. Conscious of a holy, heart-searching eye, upon him, his 
 virtue will not be an outward semblance, cloaking from human 
 sight, secret crime or selfish purposes. The opinions, fashions, or 
 rewards of the world, will neither shape his principles nor modify 
 his practice. He will fear to do evil, lest he should o/Fend against 
 God. He will do justice and love mercy, because he walks humbly 
 with God. 
 
 His expectations of eternity will guard and sustain him in hon- 
 esty. He knows himself to be immortal and God eternal; that 
 vice, which no human scrutiny can detect and no human laws can 
 punish, will meet a terrible vengeance, while good acts and pur- 
 poses will be rewarded openly by Him, who seeth in secret, at the 
 judgment day. The pains of virtue and the pleasures of vice, 
 being alike transitory, are of little account in his estimation, who 
 sets his hope in God, his Saviour, and his judge. He relies upon 
 God, because He is merciful, and knows that he is safe, because 
 God is Almighty. 
 
 Were our nation composed of such believers, how untroubled 
 would be our peace ! how entire our mutual confidence ! how free 
 our affairs from intrigue, corruption, and wrong ! The key would 
 never be turned in the lock, the gibbet seen no more, and the prison 
 doors stand open. No man would fear, but every man would love 
 his neighbour, and the true interests of all be acknowledged by 
 each as his own. 
 
 They " forget not the works of God." When God is the trea- 
 sury of a man's hopes, he loves to trace the workings of God's 
 wisdom and power, that he may know the sources upon which he 
 can draw. He considers creation, and in its minuteness as well as 
 its vastness, he reads certain proof of the same Power which made, 
 ruling so perfectly, that nothing is overlooked, and so absolutely, 
 that nothing is beyond his presiding will. He considers redemp- 
 tion, that God so loved the world as to give his only begotten Son 
 as the deliverer of all who believe upon his name, and that all 
 
bethune's discourse. 347 
 
 power is in the hands of our Elder Brother, the incarnate God. 
 Therefore is he sure, that God rules in mercy as well as justice, 
 that he will listen to the prayer of his people, and that, however 
 mysterious his methods, all things are working together by the 
 Holy Spirit for the universal triumph of truth, and righteousness, 
 and peace. 
 
 With such convictions, how cheering to him must be the study 
 of Providence ! With what confidence, remembering the faithful- 
 ness of God in the past, will he confide in him amidst the difficul- 
 ties of the present, and for the developements of the future ! and 
 how steadfastly reject for himself and for his country, any policy 
 which crosses the unchangeable laws of God, the everliving Lord ! 
 
 How strong would this nation be in hope and virtue, did our 
 people thus remember the works of God ! for never, since the 
 world began, has the providence of God been more remarkable, 
 kind, and instructive, than towards us. Jehovah did not lead Israel 
 forth from Egypt to the inheritance of Canaan with a more mighty 
 hand or manifest care, than has been seen in our history since the 
 first prayer of the pilgrim from the tyranny of the old world to 
 this better country, rose through its virgin forests, until our present 
 day of unexampled prosperity. 
 
 They " keep his commandments." The believer's obedience to 
 the directions of God is the necessary result of such trust and 
 study. Gratitude will make him loyal to a sovereign so kind and 
 faithful : a sense of his own weakness and short-sightedness will 
 incline him to follow landmarks so certain, and the approbation of 
 an honest conscience reward and incite him to persevere. 
 
 "Happy is the people that are in such a case! Yea, happy, is 
 that people whose God is the Lord !" 
 
 Secondly : The means which God has appointed for culti- 
 vating SUCH A CHA-RACTER. j 
 
 "He established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in 
 Israel:" or, as an admirable critic translates it, "He established an 
 oracle in Jacob, and deposited a revelation with Israel." 
 
 The Psalmist, doubtless, here refers not only to the law given on 
 the Mount, in which God defined human duties and prescribed re- 
 ligious worship, but to all the communications which he had made 
 or might } r et make to man. 
 
 The value of the word of God is seen in the fact, that it is the 
 word of God. What almighty mercy and wisdom saw fit to re- 
 veal, must be of the last importance. We are sure of nothing but 
 that which God has made known. Never could we have disco- 
 vered his will concerning us, or known how to walk in safet} r , had 
 he not said, "This is the way." Never could we have been as- 
 sured of a Providence over us, or looked within the tremendous 
 realities of eternity, had not he manifested himself by his own de- 
 
348 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 clarations, and brought immortality to light by Jesus Christ, the 
 man whom he has ordained as saviour and judge. Without the 
 word of God, we should be without God, ignorant, hopeless, lost 
 in perplexity, the sport of conjecture, of passion, appetite, and 
 dread. Truth would have no definition, oaths no confirmation, 
 laws no sanction, and the grave no promise ; the past would teach 
 us nothing but our ruin, and the future would be black with despair. 
 When we have that word, how glorious is the reverse to the pious 
 believer! We stand by the side of God when he laid the founda- 
 tion of the earth, and we look beyond the catastrophe of created 
 things to the fixed results of justice and love. We trace back our 
 lineage to a brotherhood with every human soul ; and we learn the 
 will of our common Father concerning the relations which bind 
 us to him and his family on earth. We see the path of righteous- 
 ness marked for our feet, and one walking by our side, " whose 
 form is like to that of the Son of God," sustaining our weakness 
 and assuring; our faithful obedience of eternal reward, after the 
 shadows and the labours of time shall have passed away and ceased 
 for ever. Nay, in the rest of the Sabbath, the worship of the sanc- 
 tuary, the communion of saints, and the witnessing sacraments, we 
 have the foretaste, sign, and confirmation of an eternal rest, love, 
 and satisfaction in the house of God, eternal and undefiled. 
 
 Need I ask you to consider the blessedness, here and hereafter, 
 of a nation who know and obey that word, and who cultivate and 
 delight in that worship! Where is the suicidal, traitor hand, that 
 would dare pluck this corner-stone from the foundation of our 
 hopes, and, extinguishing the light which heaven has kindled, give 
 our country back to the gloom, the licentiousness, and cruelties of 
 those nations which have forgotten God ! 
 
 Thirdly : The obligations upon the Christian patriot arising 
 
 FROM THIS rROVIDEN.CE OF GoD. 
 
 " He commanded our fathers to make them known to their child- 
 ren ; that the generation to come might know them, even the child- 
 ren which should be born, who should arise and declare them unto 
 their children." 
 
 The first duty laid upon us is, to study and practise the word of 
 God ourselves. It is by the light of Christian example, that the 
 saving power of the gospel is made manifest to the world. The 
 believer of the word of God, therefore, owes a profession and prac- 
 tice of Christianity not only to God, to himself, and the church, 
 but to his country, because its welfare can be secured only by re- 
 ligion. 
 
 Then, it is our duty, to the utmost of our means, to give the ad- 
 vantage of the same religion to those who neglect, or cannot,, of 
 themselves, obtain the means of grace, especially in the new set- 
 tlements of that immense valley, the power of which already over-. 
 
bethune's discourse. 349 
 
 balances the older states. Wherever a fellow-citizen is without 
 the knowledge of God, there is an element of danger mingling with 
 the aggregate of the national will. We can never control crime, 
 nor refute error, but by truth ; and in withholding the truth of 
 God, we consent to all the mischief that may be done by those, to 
 whom we might teach the right, but do not. 
 
 But, especially, are we to strive that the Bible should be in the 
 hands, and by the blessing of God upon our labours, in the hearts of 
 the rising generation. Upon their shoulders the burthens of society, 
 our country, and the cause of God, are soon to rest. From them 
 their children are to learn good or evil. Neglect a child, and you 
 have neglected the man, the woman, the father, the mother, gene- 
 rations yet unborn. The truth of God in our hands belongs to 
 them, as much as to ourselves. It is deposited with us for their 
 benefit. By omitting to give it, we rob them of God's best gift, 
 and our land, in future years, of its best defence and glory. The 
 means of education, so far as the arts of reading and writing go, are not 
 enough. Educate with all your energies. Do nothing that may by any 
 possibility interfere with, and everything to increase such instruc- 
 tion ; but let us ever be ready to set the Bible before the opened 
 eye and the craving mind. Better that a child should learn to read 
 without the Bible, than to know not how to read the Bible. Thank 
 God ! Christians need not contend for debateable ground in this mat- 
 ter. With our Bible, and Tract, and Sunday School Societies, if we 
 be only faithful in supporting them, we are more than a match, by 
 God's help, for all the infidelity and superstition among us. We 
 lose time and waste our strength, by petty squabblings with evil on 
 its own dunghill. Let us rather devote all our power and zeal to 
 those ready and open methods of disseminating truth, which no 
 force in this land can forbid us to use. When the true church of 
 God consecrates the talents she has from Him, to the spread of the 
 gospel through our country, every wall that the enmity or idolatry 
 of men can build against it shall fall like those of Jericho at the 
 trumpeting of the Levites ; when she waks forth, the light of her 
 presence shall dissipate every shadow, and, " terrible as an army 
 with banners," her peaceful triumphs will crown our whole people 
 with the glory of the Lord, a joy and a defence. 
 
 Blessed be God, there are those who have felt the necessity of 
 these religious efforts for the good of our country, and the immor- 
 tal well-being of our countrymen. They are, indeed, but too few, 
 and their zeal has not always been equal to their opportunities and 
 responsibility. Yet in them, their examples of Christian conduct, 
 their testimony to the power of religion, and their benevolent 
 labours for fhe"illumination of the ignorant, we see the providence 
 of God blessing our nation with moral life, and confirming our go- 
 vernment, founded upon the will of the people, by the only suf- 
 30 
 
350 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 ficient buttresses, knowledge, virtue, and the fear of God. The 
 faithful Christian is the only faithful patriot, and he is not a faithful 
 Christian who serves not his country in the name of Christ, and in 
 the spirit of his gospel. 
 
 These thoughts, as you know, have been suggested by the recent 
 anniversary of our national independence, a day which should be 
 dear and sacred to us all, though often miserably polluted by in- 
 temperance, and profaned by party assemblages. Surely, we might 
 devote one day of the year to the charities of patriotic brotherhood, 
 and lose all minor distinctions in our common citizenship; nor 
 should we forget before the altar of our father's God, the Author of 
 all mercies, his mighty doings for us in the past ; the good, the 
 great, the wise, the valiant, whom he nas raised up to serve, guide, 
 and defend us ;. and the blessing which he has caused to rest upon 
 their counsels, their arms, their zeal, and their sacrifices. Such 
 recollections are due to Him, to our country, and to humanity. 
 Children should hear the story, and the best genius contribute to its 
 illustration. Fresh laurels should be plucked and wreathed upon 
 the graves of the beloved for their country's sake, and eloquence 
 pay its richest tribute to their heaven-sent worth, that the living may 
 hear and follow their example. 
 
 While I thus speak, the spell of a great name comes upon our 
 hearts, compelling us to utter their thoughts and emotions. When 
 the sun of that morning rose, it gilded the fresh tomb of one whose 
 ear, for the first time since the 4th of July, 1776, failed to vibrate 
 with the thunderings of his country's birth-day joy : and a voice, 
 for the first time, answered not its cheers, which, since its boy- 
 ish shout was heard through the Revolutionary strife, had never 
 been wanting m the annual conclamation. The iron will, whose 
 upright strength never quivered amidst the lightning storms that 
 crashed around it in battle or controversy ; the adamantine judgment, 
 against which adverse opinions dashed themselves to break into 
 scattered foam ; the far-reaching faith, that flashed light upon dan- 
 gers hidden from the prudence of all beside ;. the earnest affection, 
 that yearned in a child's simplicity, the purpose of a sage, a 
 parent's tenderness, and the humble fidelity of a sworn servant over 
 the people who gave it rule and elevation, have ceased among us : 
 Andrew Jackson is with God. He, who confessed no authority 
 on earth but the welfare of his country and his own convictions of 
 right : who never turned to rest while a duty remained to be done, 
 and who never asked the support of any human arm in his hour of 
 utmost difficulty ; bowed his head meekly to the command of the 
 Highest, and walked calmly down into the grave, leaning upon the 
 strength of Jesus; paused on the threshold of immortality to for- 
 give his enemies, to pray for our liberties, to bless his weeping 
 household, and to leave the testimony of his trust in the gospel of 
 
bethunk's discourse. 351 
 
 the Crucified ; and then, at the fall of a Sabbath evening, passed into 
 the rest which is eternal. His last enemy to be destroyed was 
 death. Thanks be to God, who gave him the victory through our 
 Lord Jesus Christ ! 
 
 To say that he had faults, is to say that he was human ; the errors 
 of a mind so energetic, in a career so eventful, must have been 
 striking; nor could a character be subjected to censure more merci- 
 less, than he provoked by a policy original and unhesitating, at open 
 war with long-established usages, and dogmas that had grown into 
 unquestioned axioms. Bereft in his early youth of parental 
 guidance and restraint, educated in the camp and the forest bivouac, 
 and forced to push his own fortunes through the rough trials of 
 a border life, we can scarcely wonder that, until age had schooled 
 his spirit and tempered his blood, he was impetuous, sensitive to 
 insult, and prone to use the strong hand. Warm in his attachments, 
 he was slow to discover frailty in those he loved, or to accord con- 
 fidence where once he had doubted. Grasping, by his untutored 
 genius, conclusions which other men reach by philosophical detail, 
 he made, while sure of just ends, some mistakes in his methods, fur 
 the time disastrous. Called to act at a crisis when the good and 
 evil in our national growth had become vigorous enough for conllict, 
 and wealth and labour, like the twins of Rebecca, were struggling 
 for the right of the elder born, his decisions in great but sudden 
 emergencies were denounced by that after criticism, which can 
 look back to condemn, but is blind to lead. Compelled to resolve 
 stupendous, unprecedented questions of government and political 
 economy, he roused the hostility of opposite schools in those diffi- 
 cult sciences. Never shrinking from any responsibility, personal 
 or official, he sternly fulfilled his interpretations of duty as a co- 
 ordinate branch of the national legislature, leaving his course to the 
 verdict of his constituents ; nor did he hesitate to avail himself of 
 all the means he could extract from the letter of the constitution, 
 to achieve what he thought was the intent of its spirit. His was a 
 stern, prompt, and energetic surgery, and though the body politic 
 writhed under the operation, none can tell, though some may con- 
 jecture, the more fatal consequences his severity averted. If he 
 were wrong, public opinion has. since adopted the chief of his 
 heresies, and there is no hand strong enough or daring enough to 
 lay one stone upon another of that which he threw down into 
 ruins. But in all this, his heart was with the people, his faith firm 
 in the sufficiency of free principles; and regardless alike of depre- 
 cating friends and denouncing opponents, he held on throughout to 
 one only purpose, the permanent good of the whole, unchecked by 
 particular privileges, and unfettered by artificial restrictions. To 
 use his own lofty language, " In vain did he bear upon his person 
 enduring memorials of that contest in which American liberty was 
 
352 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 purchased; * * * in vain did he since peril property, fame, 
 and life, in defence of the rights and privileges so dearly bought, 
 if any doubts can be entertained of the purity of his purposes and 
 motives. * * * Nor could he have found an inducement to 
 commence a career of ambition, when gray hairs and a decaying 
 frame, instead of inviting to toil and battle, called him to contem- 
 plate other worlds, where conquerors cease to be honoured, and 
 usurpers expiate their crimes." 
 
 But, though there are passages in his life, about which the most 
 honest have held, and may yet hold, contrary opinions, there are 
 services of his demanding the gratitude of all, and virtues all must 
 delight to honour. Can we forget that victory, in which his ready 
 strategy and consummate skill turned back, by the valour of scarce- 
 ly disciplined men, the superior numbers and veteran determination 
 of a foreign foe from the spoil and dishonour of a rich and popu- 
 lous territory ? or the entire success, with which he delivered from 
 the scalping-knife and torture of wily and ferocious savages, the 
 Florida settlements, an achievement, which in subsequent trials far 
 less arduous, no other leader has been able to imitate .' Or the tri- 
 umph of simple firmness over diplomatic, procrastinating subtleties, 
 when, planting his foot upon what was clearly right, in a determi- 
 nation to suffer nothing that was clearly wrong;, he swung round a 
 mighty European empire to pay its long-withheld indemnity for 
 injuries done to American commerce'? And in that darkest hour 
 of our country's history, when a narrow sectionalism counterfeited 
 the colour of patriotic zeal, and discord shook her gorgon locks, 
 and men shuddered as they saw, yawning wide in the midst of our 
 confederacy, a gulf which threatened to demand the devotion of 
 many a life before it would close again, how sublimely did he pro- 
 claim over the land that doctrine sacred as the name of Washing- 
 ton, The Union must be preserved ! and the storm died away with 
 impotent mutterings. Nor is his glory in this the less, that he 
 shared it with another, and that other, one whose name the ap- 
 plauses of his countrymen have taught the mountains and the val- 
 leys to echo down for far generations, as the gallant, the frank, the 
 brilliant statesman, to whose fame the highest office could add no 
 decoration, nor disappointment rob of just claims to the people's 
 love. It was a lofty spectacle, full of rebuke to party jealousy and 
 of instruction to their countrymen, when Henry Clay offered the 
 compromise of his darling theory, and Andrew Jackson endorsed 
 the new bond that made the Union again, and, as we trust, indisso- 
 lubly firm. 
 
 Remarkable as the contrast is, there were traits in the temper of 
 the indomitable old man, tender, simple, and touching. With 
 what faithful affection he honoured her while living, whose dear 
 dust made the hope of his last resting-place more sweet, that he 
 
DISCOURSE. 353 
 
 might sleep again at her side ! And, if his heart seemed sometimes 
 steeled against the weakness of mercy, when crime was to be pu- 
 nished, or mutiny controlled, or danger annihilated ; he could also 
 stoop in his career of bloody conquest, to take a wailing, new- 
 made orphan to his pitying heart ; with the same hand, that had 
 just struck down invading foes, he steadied the judgment-seat 
 shaken with the tremors of him who sat upon it, to pronounce sen- 
 tence against him for law violated in martial necessity ; and at the 
 height of authority, the poor man found him a brother and a friend. 
 But, O how surpassingly beautiful was his closing scene, when, 
 as the glories of his earthly honour were fading in the brightness 
 of his eternal anticipations, and his head humbly rested upon the 
 bosom of Him who was crucified for our sins, his latest breath 
 departed in the praises of that religion which had become his 
 only boast, and in earnest counsel that all who loved him might 
 obtain the like faith, and meet him in heaven ! There was no 
 doubt in his death ; he had prepared to meet his God ; and when 
 his giant heart fainted, and his iron frame failed, God was the 
 strength of his heart, and his portion for ever. Little would all his 
 achievements have won for him, had he gained the whole world, 
 yet lost his soul; but now his fame will survive until time shall be 
 no more, and his spirit is immortal among the redeemed. The an- 
 gels bore him from us, no longer the hero, the statesman, the guide 
 of millions, and the master mind of his country ; but a sinner saved 
 by grace to the feet of the Lamb that was slain, a little child of 
 God to the bosom of his Father. My hearers, have you been his 
 friends? Obey his parting counsel, and by faith in Jesus, follow 
 him to heaven, whom you have delighted to follow on earth. Have 
 you been in opposition to his life? Refuse not the profit of his 
 death, but find in that blood, which cleansed him from all his sins, 
 atonement for your own. that his last testimony had the same 
 power over men's souls, as his cheer in battle, and his proclama- 
 tions of political doctrine ! Then would he shine bright among 
 the brightest in the constellation of those, who turn many to right- 
 
 s' 
 
 eousness 
 
 My brethren, I have spoken much longer than I meant to have 
 done, but you would not have withheld from me the privilege. If 
 I have dwelt upon the best traits in the notable character of one, 
 who has not been suffered to escape the earnest crimination of 
 many, it has been because he is dead. You, who listened to me 
 with so much candour, when I paid, four years since, an humble 
 tribute to the merits of him who reached the height of authority 
 to sink into a grave watered by a nation's tears, will not condemn 
 my utterance of similar emotions now. The jackal hate, that howls 
 over the lifeless body, is far removed from your Christian charity 
 and generous judgment. 
 30* 
 
354 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 "Vile is the vengeance on the ashes cold. 
 And envy base to bark at sleeping mould." 
 
 Let us rather pray as Christians, that the memory of good deeds 
 may live, and the example of a Christian's death be sanctified. 
 Let us, as Christian patriots, take new courage in setting forth, by 
 word and practice, the paramount virtue of the religion we profess, 
 to save our country, as it saves the soul ; and, while we mourn the 
 conflicts of evil passion, not forget the actual good, which, by the 
 Divine favour, is working out health from the mysterious fermen- 
 tation. 
 
 There is, notwithstanding occasional agitation, a calm good sense 
 among our people, sufficient to recover and maintain the equili- 
 brium. It is not seen blustering around the polls; it is not heard 
 vociferating and applauding in party meetings ; nor, unhappily, 
 does it often appear on the arena, where misnomered statesmen 
 struggle rather for personal advancement than their country's good ; 
 but it lives with those, who, in honest toil, are too independent to 
 be bought, or, in honest competence, too content to desire the 
 doubtful distinctions of popular favour. It is nurtured by the les- 
 sons of holy religion. It is breathed in the prayer of God's true 
 worshippers. It deliberates around the domestic hearth, where the 
 father thinks of the posterity who are to live after him ;. in the 
 philosophic retirement of the man of letters; in the workshop 
 where the freeman feels proud of his sweat ; and in the cultured 
 field, from which the farmer knows that his bread is sure by the 
 bounty of heaven. It is felt in the practice of common duties, the 
 example of daily virtues, and the results of observant experience. 
 It is like oil on the waves of noisy strife. The man in power 
 trembles as he hears its still small voice; the secret conspirator 
 finds its clear eye upon him, and quails beneath the searching scru- 
 tiny ; and, like the angel of Israel, it meets the demagogue on his 
 way to curse the land which God has blessed, and, if he be not 
 turned back, it alarms and forewarns the beast on which he rides. 
 
 It may be said, that the party of the honest and intelligent is 
 small, far smaller than, with my respect for my country, I believe 
 it to be; but, if it be, it has still the controlling voice from the di- 
 visions of the rest. Each disastrous experiment teaches them new 
 prudence, each well-sustained trial new courage. They have not 
 looked for immediate perfection, and, therefore, are willing yet to 
 learn. They are the men who hold the country together, and their 
 influence is the salt which saves the mass from utter corruption. I 
 look upward above the dust which is raised by scuffling partisans, 
 to the throne of our fathers' God ; I look backward on all the 
 threatening events through which he has brought us; and I can 
 commit my country to the care of Him who " maketh even the 
 wrath of man to praise him," and believe that it is safe. Under 
 
bethune's discourse. 355 
 
 providence, I rely with an unshaken faith on the intelligent will of 
 the American people. If my faith be a delusion, may it go with 
 me to my grave. When its warrant proves false, I could pray 
 God, if it be his will, to let me die ; for the brightest hope that 
 ever dawned on political freedom shall have been lost in darkness, 
 the fairest column ever reared by the hands of men cast down, and 
 the beacon-light of the world gone out. 
 
 My hearers, we must soon appear before God to answer for all 
 our conduct here. Then, what will avail all our busy, anxious, 
 most successful pursuit of this world, if, through neglect of a timely 
 faith and repentance, we are lost for ever? Let me entreat you, 
 therefore, to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, 
 that the Holy Spirit may be your g4iide, Christ your intercessor, 
 and the Father receive you among thr children of his love. Until 
 we have obtained this grace for ourselves, we shall seek in vain to 
 do any real good ; there is no promise' of an answer to our prayers, 
 or of a blessing upon our zeal. We cannot be faithful to others, 
 while we remain unfaithful to God and our own souls. May the 
 voice of Providence, confirming the testimony of the Scriptures, 
 prevail with us all to prepare for eternity, that, in our wise pre- 
 paration, we may secure our own best happiness, by rendering the 
 best service to God, our country, and our race ! Amen. 
 
A SERMON, 
 
 REV. THOMAS BRAINERD, 
 
 PREACHED TO IllS CONGREGATION IN PINE STREET CHURCH, 
 
 july C, 1845. 
 
 " I exhort, therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and 
 giving of thanks, be made for all men ; for kings, and for all that are in authority, 
 that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and hoticsty.'" — 
 1 Timothy, ii. 1,2. 
 
 1 . We are taught in this passage a respect for constituted authority. 
 Almost any form of civil government is preferable to lawless anar- 
 chy ; and, therefore, Christians, subject even to Roman despotism, 
 were instructed to remember their rulers as such at the altar of 
 prayer. 
 
 2. We are taught by the text, the doctrine that God's providence 
 legislates overall rulers; so that in answer to prayer, he will so 
 "rule rulers, and counsel counsellors," that their course of govern- 
 ment shall bless their subjects. 
 
 3. We are taught in this passage, that Christians are to regard 
 their civil duties and the welfare of their country, as a part of their 
 religious obligations and responsibilities. They are so to deport 
 themselves in their offices of holy living and prayer, as to bless 
 mankind here, as well as hereafter. And if it be the duty of 
 Christians to pray for those in authority, because rulers have a great 
 influence on the weal or woe of their country, it may also be the 
 duty of religious teachers to define, illustrate, and enforce the duties 
 men owe to their country, as a part of the duties demanded by God. 
 This I purpose to do this evening. 
 
 4. We learn from the text who are the best rulers, and who the 
 happiest subjects. Those are the best rulers who so rule that their 
 subjects " lead quiet and peaceable lives in all godliness and hon- 
 esty." " Quiet and peaceable lives in all godliness and honesty," 
 suppose the protection of just law ; property, person, freedom, and 
 life made secure, and the subject himself estimating these blessings, 
 pursuing a course of conduct marked by justice, temperance, 
 moderation, benevolence, and piety. 
 
 (356) 
 
brainerd's discourse. 357 
 
 When these ends are secured, a nation has the highest tokens of 
 God's favour. 
 
 The topics started directly or by inference from the text, suggest 
 rich materials for thought and illustration, but I do not now pur- 
 pose to dwell upon them in detail. I have suggested them, not 
 only because they sustain the main principles for which I shall 
 contend, but because they afford license to the sacred desk for the 
 discussion of these principles. 
 
 In this discourse, I propose, without obligation to any logical ar- 
 rangement, to discuss generally the following topics. 
 
 What are the essentials of national happiness and prosperity ? 
 
 What were the peculiar responsibilities of those who proclaimed 
 our independence sixty-nine years since, and sustained it against a 
 foreign power ; and what are the duties peculiarly devolving on us 
 to enrich and perpetuate our national blessings? 
 
 What lessons have been furnished to this nation by the life and 
 death of one whose recent departure has aroused public attention 
 and sympathy ? 
 
 I can of course but briefly touch points of such magnitude. 
 
 What are the essentials of national happiness and prosperity ? 
 
 1. Negatively, national happiness and prosperity do not depend on 
 extent of territory. It is indeed requisite, that our territory should 
 furnish fair scope for private enterprise and universal sustenance ; 
 but when we have already a domain which gives a plantation to 
 every poor man who can invest two hundred dollars for its pur- 
 chase — when our territory embraces the great rivers which conduct 
 our commerce to the broad sea — when our climate is varied enough 
 north and south to furnish the productions of every latitude — when 
 our territory is large enough to embrace the resources of men and 
 means to defend us from foreign aggression — it is obvious we have 
 no motive for conquest or acquisition. 
 
 2. Great wealth is not an essential ingredient of national happiness. 
 All experience tells us that the middle condition of society is the 
 happiest. Great wealth tends to excessive and morbid refinement 
 and indulgence — it tempts to avarice, idleness, profligacy, and 
 licentiousness. The palmy days of Rome, of Tyre, of Babylon, 
 were their days of enterprise and relative poverty. When they 
 compelled the world to pour its riches into their bosoms, they sunk 
 into the dead and putrid sea of effeminate and animalized luxury. 
 
 3. National happiness does not consist in great military and na- 
 val strength. True, we need the power to defend our rights and 
 interests, but beyond this, our indefinite preparation of the instru- 
 ments of death, only tempts to national bravado, to the lust of 
 power and conquest, to oppression and legalized murder. 
 
 We have seen what are not essentials to national happiness and 
 prosperity. We are now prepared positively to state what are 
 
358 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 such essentials. And here allow me to make the very obvious re- 
 mark, that a nation is not an abstraction, in distinction from the in- 
 dividuals of which it is composed. That is a happy nation, in 
 which there is the greatest amount of personal, social, family, and 
 neighbourhood felicity. It is obvious then, that those causes which 
 minister to the greatest good of individuals, are the real essentials 
 of national prosperity. The moral, social, and pecuniary degra- 
 dation of the individuals of a nation, is the degradation of the na- 
 tion itself, no matter what may be the form of its government, or 
 the loftiness of its pretensions. Keeping this principle in mind, I 
 remark, I. That the first essential to national happiness is cicil 
 and religious freedom. God has made man a free moral agent, and 
 designed him to act for himself, under the influence of self-love and 
 religious duty. 
 
 There is nothing which human nature more covets than liberty. 
 Take away from a man the consciousness of freedom and the right 
 of self-government — assume that he is born to be the slave of the 
 interest, ease, and pleasure, of kings or petty tyrants, and he feels 
 degraded below the level of his race. The world becomes to him 
 a prison — large, indeed, but sombre and hateful. The slave of 
 despots may go to his task, but those cheering anticipations of 
 benefit to himself and family, which lighten the burdens of labour, 
 he can never know. The slave may eat, and drink, and dance in 
 his chains, but his enjoyments are animalized, like those of the 
 brute, to whose condition he is degraded. 
 
 Give a man liberty, and he covets knowledge. Occupying his 
 natural and Heaven-appointed condition of liberty, he loves light 
 because it reveals his blessings and aids his aspirings, like the soar- 
 ing bird that rises and floats in the airy element which God has 
 made its own. On the other hand, enslave a man, and he covets 
 ignorance, like the mariner who closes his eyes against the vision 
 of deadly rocks that he cannot shun. Where have new discoveries 
 in science and new inventions in the arts originated I Almost al- 
 ways among the free, who expected to reap the results of their 
 genius. Slavery is a most bitter curse, because it leaves man with 
 his wants, his woes, and his labours, but takes away the motives 
 designed to soften the burdens of human life. In this land we are 
 blessed with liberty, and it deserves all the eulogies which 4th of 
 July orators have poured upon it. I have only to regret that our 
 songs of joy, even in this land of freedom, are interrupted by the 
 clanking chains of two millions of slaves. May God open the 
 way for their final and safe emancipation. 
 
 II. — A second requisite to national happiness is individual in- 
 dustry in some tiseful occupation. The wealth of a nation is made 
 up of the earnings of individuals. If any individual, by industry 
 and carefulness in business, accumulate beyond his own necessities, 
 
 
brainerd's discourse. 359 
 
 present and prospective, he is to remember that the decrepid, the 
 sick, the imbecile and aged poor, the helpless widow, the friendless 
 orphan, are to be sustained by the savings of the young, the health- 
 ful, and the enterprising — so that no man has an apology for idle- 
 ness. An idle man usually sinks to a vagrant. An idle family, 
 whatever may be its present wealth, is on a rapid pilgrimage to 
 vice, crime, beggary, and contempt. 
 
 A nation, relinquishing industry and slow gains to embark in 
 grasping speculation, presents a spectacle about as amiable, happy, 
 and hopeful, as the gambling fraternities in our low grog-shops. 
 
 Every man, young or old, who spends time in idleness, would 
 do well to remember that he is a missionary of moral corruption 
 and universal beggary — that if his example were imitated, we 
 should have no country — or if we retained an empire, it would be 
 a continent of darkness, pollution, and vice. The Pharisee "thanked 
 God he was not. like other men." Our idler, rich or poor, fashion- 
 able or unfashionable, may reverse this, and thank God that others 
 are not like him. 
 
 He who covets food, shelter, and life's luxuries, without the in- 
 dustry to labour, or the self-denial to save, has begun an apprentice- 
 ship to fraud and theft. When a nation is made up of such, it is 
 unfit for liberty, and may covet the advent of an energetic despot 
 as a boon from God. 
 
 III. — A third essential to national prosperity and happiness is 
 temperance. How wide-spread has been the prevalence of intem- 
 perance in our land ! It has absorbed more money than all the 
 expense of our Revolution — all the outlay of our second war with 
 Great Britain. It has absorbed more money than all our academies, 
 colleges — all our Bible and Missionary Associations — all our hos- 
 pitals and asylums. It has wrung this money from aged parents to 
 gratify the appetite of profligate sons, and from the worn, weary, 
 heart-sick wife, and starving children, to gratify the diseased 
 craving of a debased husband and father. This money has gone to 
 fill the pockets of men who added nothing to the common stock of 
 national wealth by their employment, but who first plucked their 
 victims and then kicked them into the street. And have we lost 
 nothing but money by this vice? The pilot has quaffed the 
 cup, and in the madness of intoxication, run his vessel at a great 
 waste of life upon the deadly rock. From ships and steamboats, 
 from stages and railroad cars, from a thousand parts of our land, the 
 shriek of fesr and woe has come, because those intrusted with the 
 safety of life had perpetrated reckless murder by sacrificing myriads 
 to their own love of the cup. 
 
 And is the moral ruin of the victims of intemperance nothing'? 
 Who of us have not blushed at the degradation of some relative? 
 
 o* 
 
360 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 Who of us have not visited the prematura, sad grave, of some re- 
 lative, the victim of intemperance? 
 
 Now we must not, on the 4th of July, throw up our hats and 
 shout that our fathers saved us from "a three-cent tax on tea," 
 while we are coldly indifferent to the more cruel slavery which 
 has ground to the dust hundreds of thousands of our citizens. 
 
 What tyrant on a throne ever wrung from a living victim his 
 health, his reason, his good affections, his self-respect, his reputation, 
 his property, his industry, and his undying soul ? 
 
 Nero was merciful compared to this. Thank God ! eighty 
 thousand of these victims have broken the yoke of the tyrant, 
 and stand erect in the dignity of human nature, under the rainbow 
 of hope. 
 
 But we must watch this cause. Our tongues will falter in their 
 rejoicing over libtjrty till we see our country safe from intemperance. 
 And we even shall distrust all pretensions to patriotism or philan- 
 thropy, which coldly regard the effort to make our country happy 
 by making its citizens sober. 
 
 IV. — Another element of national happiness is a spirit of peace 
 and order. We know how odious and how painful is the spirit of 
 strife, contention, hatred, and violence, in a family or neighbour- 
 hood. We know how malice embitters the enjoyment of an in- 
 dividual by gnawing the heart that cherishes it. Hence we know 
 that a nation, under the influence of a spirit of war and violence, 
 is not only guilty, but miserable — not only robbed of communion 
 with God, but hindered from the exercise of those sweet charities 
 of the heart, which ennoble and bless a human soul. The spirit 
 of war may for a time find its victims in foreign lands, but it 
 nourishes a tiger thirst for human blood, which, sooner or later, 
 leads to the carnage of civil war, when citizen butchers citizen. 
 We ask that our political and religious opinions shall be treated 
 with respect and toleration — we ask for the liberty to worship God. 
 not only without fear of violence, but without opprobrium. We 
 ask that our houses shall be safe from fear, so that our wives and 
 children may rejoice around the domestic hearth and altar. Wc 
 desire that all should cherish towards us sentiments of kindness anc 
 good-will. We must remember that we are no better than our ract 
 — that other men, and other families, and other nations, have the 
 same desire and capacity for safety and enjoyment. If we ask fo: 
 blessings at the hands of others, we should be as willing; to grant a. 
 to take. To hate and injure others, of whatever nation or creed 
 is to break down those barriers which protect us and ours fron 
 violence and death. The rio;ht of self-defence we all admit. Th 
 duty to be prepared to resist wrong inflicted by another nation, ma' 
 be as imperative as our duty to resist the midnight assassin. Still, 
 contend that the best protection of a nation against insult and in 
 
 
 01; 
 
 lisi 
 
 K. 
 
 1 
 
brainerd's discourse. 361 
 
 jury, is the spirit of justice and peace. Who are the men that 
 pass through life with universal respect and kindness? The peace- 
 1'ul and the just. Who is the man that is complaining of insults at 
 home and abroad — of insults at parties — in railroad cars, in steam- 
 boats, and everywhere else? It is the man who is over jealous of 
 his dignity — the man whose disposition to encroach on others dis- 
 poses others to encroach on him — the man whose ready appeal to 
 personal violence tempts others to inflict violence on him. 
 
 He who should refuse to give way to others in Chestnut street, 
 would soon raise a mob. Jostling others, he would provoke the 
 same spirit to jostle him, until he would be borne down by numbers. 
 Let him courteously yield to others, and others will cheerfully give 
 way for him. Men mirror back the temper we present. 
 
 In the south-west all are armed, expecting insults, and they soon 
 find them. Here, we assume that others are disposed to respect our 
 rights, and they seldom disappoint us. The empire of Rome, in 
 the spirit of aggression, stretched her armies to the cold north, and 
 stirred up the power that stung her to death. Napoleon nourished 
 the spirit of war in France, until fear and hate brought at last a 
 power from without to crush his empire. Great Britain is holding 
 the world in fear. May she take warn?qg by the fate of her rival ! 
 We are so insulated, that a peaceful spirit is safe as well as 
 beautiful. If we teach our growing millions to love war, we shall 
 rue it at last. " They that take the sword shall perish by the 
 sword." 
 
 We want not tens of thousands of our young men to be cor- 
 rupted by the camp ; we want not the waste of millions of our 
 own in efforts to waste the life and property of others ; we want no 
 flaming cities ; no vessels exploded and sinking, amid the cries of 
 dying sailors; we want no wail of widows and orphans over hus- 
 bands and fathers prematurely slain ; we want no interrupted in- 
 dustry, ruined commerce, and down-trodden harvests ; we want no 
 battle-fields shrieking with the wounded and slippery with gore ; 
 we want no war. 
 
 V. A fifth element of national prosperity and happiness, is the 
 universal prevalence of intellectual, moral, and religious cultiva- 
 tion. Let intellectual light be diffused, that the millions of our 
 land may know their rights and their duties, social and religious. 
 Let the truth of God be diffused to furnish those millions with the 
 disposition and the motives to do their duty. The grand office of 
 leading minds in 1776, was to rouse the mass of this nation to re- 
 sist a foreign foe. They succeeded. Sixty-nine years of national 
 existence and enlargement have raised us to an elevation above the 
 fear of foreign enemies. 
 
 We have wrested the sceptre of government from a foreign des- 
 pot, and reposed it where it ought to be, in the hands of the ma- 
 31 
 
362 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 jority of this nation. Our destiny is no longer in the power of 
 one man, but millions. If one man governed us, we should ask, 
 with awful emphasis, what is his character? If millions govern 
 us, we may, with equal emphasis, ask what is, and is to be, the 
 character of those millions? Are they educated? Are they mo- 
 ral ? Are they patriotic ? Do they fear God and respect the great 
 principles of righteousness? Who does not see the pertinence of 
 these questions? Who that loves his country does not feel their 
 importance? It is obvious, that while the grand mission of the 
 Revolution was to battle down foreign domination, by fanning the 
 spirit of martial feeling and resistance to tyranny, our great office, 
 in the sixty-ninth year of independence, is, through the spirit of 
 peace and universally diffused light, to educate into right principles 
 and right action, the millions who hold here the sceptre of power. 
 
 The Revolution demanded the cultivation of the stronger pas- 
 sions — the nourishing of a sense of wrong, and the martial spirit 
 to resist wrong. Now we need the passions to be soothed, lest they 
 break out in violence on ourselves. Now we need to cultivate the 
 intellect, the conscience, and the heart, that men may "lead quiet 
 and peaceable lives in all godliness and honesty." 
 
 The patriotism of the Revolution found its highest developement 
 in hazarding life and property to defend the country. The high 
 office of the distinguished patriot now is fulfilled, by the exhibi- 
 tion of an example of industry, temperance, self-control, of warm 
 domestic affection-s, and love of public order in subjection to the 
 laws of God and man — and of large and willing charities to diffuse 
 that moral education, which shall elevate this entire nation to the 
 practice of the same virtues. 
 
 The Revolution demanded agitation and excitement. We then 
 asked for great changes. We have now gained our freedom and 
 the means to defend it. Our true interest can now best be secured 
 by tranquillity and repose. We then had everything to gain by 
 excitement and revolution. Now we have everything to lose. 
 
 A very remote predecessor in this pulpit, the Reverend Doctor 
 Duffield, was associated with Bishop White as chaplain to the Con- 
 tinental Congress. He was also for a time chaplain in the Conti- 
 nental army. He made these old walls resound seventy years ago, 
 with exhortations to the male members of this congregation to take 
 up arms for their country. On a Sabbath morning, when the Bri- 
 tish were approaching, he told them he was " sorry to see so many 
 yet at home." 
 
 It is now my duty, after seventy years, to exhort you to make 
 similar great and patriotic sacrifices, to plant schools, academies, 
 colleges, and churches, in ever}' destitute neighbourhood, and to 
 give your personal example and labours to the great work of edu- 
 cating the youthful generation, that the}-, by their virtues, may be 
 
DISCOURSE. 363 
 
 worthy to hold the inestimable blessing purchased by the blood of 
 their fathers. 
 
 Doctor Duffield here prayed for the success of our arms in war. 
 It is your duty and mine now to pray for the spirit of peace to be 
 breathed over this great nation, that the arts of peace may beautify 
 and enrich our domain from the sands of the Atlantic to the mild 
 waves of the Pacific Ocean. 
 
 I must say here, although somewhat out of place, that our late 
 President Jackson was always the warm friend and frequent patron 
 of religious education. When the Reverend Samuel J. Mills was 
 on a missionary tour to the West, his horse died, near Nashville. 
 A great loss for a poor missionary ! He was the guest of General 
 Jackson, who promptly gave him another and better horse, as a 
 mark of friendship to the cause. 
 
 A clergyman, now in New York city, of the highest standing, 
 told me, a few days since, that when he was on a tour in Tennes- 
 see, twenty-five years ago or more, to obtain pecuniary means to 
 build up the Presbyterian Theological Seminarv at Maryville, 
 General Jackson was his best auxiliary. He gave him one hundred 
 dollars most cheerfully, and volunteered a letter to all his friends 
 in the South and West, urging the building up of such seminaries, 
 as indispensable to the well-being of the country. Such testimo- 
 ny on such a point is valuable. 
 
 The grand instrument of national salvation in the Revolution was 
 the army, brave to defend their homes and their country. Trie 
 grand instrument of saving this land now from idleness, intempe- 
 rance, fraud and violence, and ultimate despotism, is the church of 
 God embraced in the various religious denominations. Her prayers 
 are to propitiate Heaven's anger. Her active benevolence in good 
 works, in promoting education and true religion, is to be the foun- 
 dation of our national morality and prosperity. The moral virtues 
 of no nation rise above its religion. When the army of the Revo- 
 lution faltered in courage and self-sacrifice, the genius of our na- 
 tion grew pale with fear and wept in sadness. When the church 
 of God in this land becomes self-indulgent, proud, sectarian, and 
 temporizing, forgetful of her high office, as Heaven's almoner of 
 light and purity, angels in Heaven might weep over a presage of 
 national abandonment and sin. You will remember that in the 
 most perplexing period of General Jackson's administration, when 
 clouds lowered over the whole political horizon, he was daunted 
 by none of these things, but said " his greatest trouble was the ?chis7/i 
 in his favourite denomination — the Presbyterian church." Parti- 
 sans jeered him for this, accused him of hypocrisy ; but is there 
 any reason to doubt that his sagacious intellect saw that what im- 
 paired the influence of Christianity struck a blow at national mo- 
 rality and safety ? 
 
364 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 Patriotism and piety might now mourn over the religious apathy, 
 not of a single denomination, but of this entire land. As the prac- 
 tice and enjoyment of religion is absolutely indispensable to the 
 true happiness of each individual of the nation, that cannot be 
 called a truly prosperous nation which is not increasing in the fa- 
 vour of God. 
 
 I propose now to advert to some lessons taught to this nation by 
 the life and death of one of the most prominent of our citizens. 
 As the death of any man under God's providence is a fair subject 
 for pulpit discussion — as the president of these United States has 
 officially called the attention of the nation to the decease of his 
 distinguished predecessor — and as the individual himself bore a re- 
 markable character both in life and death, I make no apology for 
 introducing the name of Andrew Jackson on this occasion. As I 
 shall express my honest convictions, with a desire to give no offence 
 to any human being, by invading the political prejudices of any, I 
 hope for your candid attention. With political creeds I have no 
 concern here, but as the name of Andrew Jackson has an influ- 
 ence with millions, it is desirable to see how far it prompts to truth 
 and virtue. 
 
 Andrew Jackson began life amid the storms of the Revolution, 
 when the war spirit was most rife in the land. He spent his whole 
 life in a section of country where not to resent injury is to lose 
 caste in society. He was a soldier for his country, and thus forced 
 by duty into scenes of bloodshed. He was a man not only of sin- 
 gular sagacity, but of strong and quick passions — full of the chi- 
 valry of the military profession. He was not a professed Christian 
 until he had retired from public life. Taking all these circum- 
 stances into account, it is not wonderful that there should have al- 
 ways been in his character an irritability under opposition, and an 
 occasional violence of language and manner, which we, trained 
 among calmer scenes, and under a more steady and consistent 
 Christian influence, must condemn. But an orphan at fourteen 
 years of age, first a soldier in the Revolutionary army — then a pri- 
 soner in the British camp — then an emigrant at twenty-one, to so- 
 journ in the western wilderness among treacherous savages and 
 lawless associates, had few opportunities to study the doctrine of 
 Christian meekness and forbearance. 
 
 T was told by a distinguished gentleman of Tennessee, then an 
 elder it) the Presbyterian church, that in early times, when a howl- 
 ing wilderness of one hundred and fifty miles in extent, filled with 
 savages, separated Nashville settlement, then in North Carolina, 
 from Lexington settlement, then in Western Virginia, they were 
 accustomed to form caravans for mutual safety in threading this 
 wilderness. One of these caravans, made up mostly of young men, 
 among whom was Jackson, started from Nashville for Lexington, 
 
brainerd's discourse. 365 
 
 having a woman in charge going to join her husband in Lexington. 
 The ladv was taken sick the second night. In the morning several 
 of the young men arose, saddled their horses, and were about to 
 leave, when young Jackson asked what they were about to do? 
 Would they leave a woman to perish alone In the wilderness ? 
 They were impatient, reckless, afraid perhaps of Indians on their 
 track. They said they must go on. Jackson levelled his rifle and 
 declared he would kill the first man that put his foot in the stirrup ; 
 thus he brought them to a stand. They agreed to wait a day — the 
 lady was then able to travel, and they reached Lexington in safety. 
 This shows the kind of associates around young Jackson, and the 
 kind of bearing which he came to regard as chivalrous and neces- 
 sary. 
 
 We must judge such a man by his circumstances, not by ours; 
 and tried by this standard, I think, what Walter Scott said of a co- 
 venanter was true of Andrew Jackson : "His faults were those of 
 his times and associates; his virtues were eminently his own." I 
 may here in candour say that some of the leading measures of his 
 civil administration I did not approve. The removal of the Che- 
 rokee Indians from their homes I resisted with my pen, and have 
 often denounced it in this congregation. But I then believed, and 
 I now believe, that no president since the days of Washington ever 
 carried to the presidential chair a more patriotic and honest heart. 
 
 Whether a measure were popular or unpopular — whether his 
 friends approved or opposed — if he thought it right, he urged it 
 without regard to personal consequences. 
 
 If a measure were too unpopular to be touched by his friends, he 
 threw himself into the breach and shouldered the responsibility. 
 This course, so far above the truckling, time-serving course of mere 
 selfish and heartless demagogues of all parties, took the nation by 
 surprise. The nature of his measures, and the energy of his will, 
 excited, in many, fear, but all felt the power of this moral courage 
 — of this abandonment of self; and many, while they dreaded the 
 effect of the measures, felt an increased admiration of the sincerity 
 of the man. 
 
 This conviction of the sincerity of General Jackson, of his will- 
 ingness to do what he believed the good of the country demanded, 
 without respect to friend or foe, was one element of his great 
 popularity. Mankind love a sincere and resolute character, and I 
 hope politicians will learn from the example of General Jackson 
 that '• honesty is the best policy;" while perhaps he himself would 
 have been more wise had he sometimes lent a more open ear to the 
 counsels of his judicious friends. 
 
 The sanction which the early example and the great name of 
 General Jackson gave to duelling we must all deplore. 
 
 But we must remember that in office he struck at once from the 
 31* 
 
366 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 rolls of the navy the names of two officers who had engaged in a 
 duel, showing that his riper judgment disapproved the violence of 
 his youth. In the early part of his last sickness he said, "May 
 my e/tcmies find j)cace" — " may the liberty of my country endure 
 for ever." This was the spirit in which he died, the spirit which 
 I hope all his friends will cultivate. 
 
 General Jackson's defects were as open as his virtues. He con- 
 cealed nothing, and the eyes of millions watched his errors. I will 
 palliate none. 
 
 But among: his defects known to this nation, has he ever shrunk 
 
 -IT* T T 
 
 at an_y sacrifice to discharge every pecuniary obligation 1 He once 
 exchanged a delightful villa for a home in the wilderness, to pay 
 the debts assumed for a friend. Has he ever sought wealth by 
 gambling, fraud, or overreaching in trade, or by speculating in 
 office ? Has he ever been accused of seducing innocence from the 
 paths of virtue, or rioting in low debauchery ? Has he ever shrunk 
 in bearing his testimony to the value of temperance and religion ? 
 Has he ever neglected the poor to flatter the rich ? Has he ever 
 refused a well-authenticated claim on his charity, whether from 
 friend or foe, whether for an object secular or religious 1 Has he 
 ever forgotten a friend in adversity, or received at the hands of any 
 one an obligation which he did not endeavour to discharge ? Has 
 he ever forborne to bear his testimony to the truth and value of the 
 Christian religion, or absented himself on the Sabbath from the 
 worship of Almighty God ? Has he ever failed to treat with kind- 
 ness ministers of the gospel — to open his house and his purse to 
 such as were in poverty and want? Has he not, again and again, 
 sacrificed ease, and home, and money, and put in peril reputation 
 and life, to defend his country ? 
 
 If, with so many claims to national respect and gratitude, it be 
 still true that the prompt decision, powerful will, and ardent temper, 
 which made him one of the greatest military commanders of this 
 or any age, sometimes tempted him to precipitation, violence, and 
 obstinacy, it only shows that he was a man, and, like other men, 
 liable to err. 
 
 We cannot have the strength of the wind to swell our sails with- 
 out a liability to tempests — nor the warmth of fire without danger 
 of conflagrations. So, neither can we find in man great abilities 
 and energy for good, without corresponding infelicities. To this 
 our great Washington alone seems to have been an exception. It 
 is enoug;h to excite our best feelinsrs in view of the death of Jack- 
 son, if we can all say — as I believe we can — that in spite of the 
 defects, moral or political, imputed to him, he had a lofty patriotism 
 — a large, honest, and brave heart, and the ends " he aimed at were 
 his country's!" 
 
brainerd's discourse. 367 
 
 It was not till the storms of his public life were over, that he 
 gave his attention practically to religion. The influence of a pious 
 mother left always on his mind a firm faith in Christianity, and a 
 profound reverence for its doctrines and institutions ; but, like too 
 many others, he procrastinated the great duty of "repentance 
 towards God, and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ." 
 
 When in Cincinnati fifteen years ago, a beautiful young lady 
 asked him to write in her album. He wrote — 
 
 " When I can read my title clear 
 To mansions in the skies, 
 I'll bid farewell to every pear, 
 And wipe my weeping eyes. 
 
 Andrew Jacksox." 
 
 Politicians saw in this cant, pretence, or imbecility. Those that 
 knew General Jackson's early life, saw in it the principles of piety 
 planted by a departed mother, and struggling in a masculine in- 
 tellect and conscience with the excitements and temptations of the 
 world. 
 
 While at Washington, President Jackson has often sent for 
 clergymen visiting the city, to conduct prayer in his family. This 
 showed his respect for religion at that period, and renders his sub- 
 sequent conversion less wonderful. About seven years ago, he 
 united with the Presbyterian church in Nashville, of which the 
 Reverend Doctor Edgar is pastor. 
 
 Doctor Edgar, at his grave, gave a touching account of his con- 
 version to God, and bore testimony that in the church he had de- 
 veloped a consistent Christian character. Convinced of his duty 
 to serve God by a public profession, he stood up before the world 
 as a disciple of Christ. We only regret, as he doubtless regretted, 
 that he had not thus consecrated himself early in life. 
 
 I. — His death, though in the course of nature, teaches us first, how 
 rain is all earthly good. General Jackson had all the world could 
 give him of office and honour. He lived almost fourscore years ; 
 but " all the world gave it has taken away." His ear is deaf to 
 human applause. He moulders like the beggar in his shroud. The 
 strong arm is palsied — the stout heart is still — the voice which has 
 moved armies and agitated a continent, is silent. What a lesson 
 does this read to earthly ambition — how humbling to human pride ! 
 
 The deceased took this humbling view of death, when he refused 
 to have his remains laid in a sarcophagus which three thousand years 
 had spared, and the partiality of friends had presented. " Let me 
 be buried," said he, " in the earth — by the remains of my beloved 
 companion. I wish to be buried in a plain, unostentatious manner, 
 without any pomp." 
 
 His epitaph, fixed upon by himself, is : 
 
368 MONUMENT TO JACKSON. 
 
 "ANDREW JACKSON, 
 
 BORN 15tll OF MARCH, 1767, 
 DIED 8th OF JUNE, 1845." 
 
 He would not mock the humiliation of the grave, hy attempting 
 to garnish it with earthly splendour. He would let death utter its 
 scornful and unbroken rebuke of human pride, avarice, and ambition. 
 
 II. — The death scene of General Jackson, shows our need of 
 teligion. The light which cheered his pilgrimage through the 
 dark valley was no reflected glory from splendid victories and lofty 
 political stations. The huzzas of millions made no music for his 
 dying ear. If he found peace then, and he did find it, it was in 
 the evidence that God had forgiven his sins and renewed his heart. 
 It will be so with us. We toil and strive for the world, but in 
 dying, all the treasure that will avail us will be the hope of God's 
 favour and eternal life. 
 
 III. — The death scene of General Jackson discloses a motive 
 to begin early to serve God and ovr generation. On the Sabbath, 
 two weeks before he died, the Lord's supper was administered in 
 the Presbyterian church near his residence. Unable to go out, he 
 desired " once more" to receive the sacrament inhis chamber. At 
 the close, he said, " When I have suffered sufficiently the Lord will 
 take me to himself, but what are my sufferings compared to my 
 Saviour, who died for me on the accursed tree." 
 
 On the Sabbath, the day he died, he first fainted and was supposed 
 to be dead ; but revived. He called all his little grandchildren and 
 the members of his family — took each of his grandchildren by the 
 hand, and blessed and kissed them all. He told them they had 
 good parents — to keep the Sabbath and read the Testament. 
 " Where," he says, " is my daughter Mary 1 God will take care 
 of you for me. I am my God's. I belong to him. I go but a 
 short time before you." His grandchildren began to cry. " What 
 is the matter, my dear children ? Have I alarmed you ? 0, do not 
 cry — be good children, and we shall meet in Heaven." Turning to 
 the servants, he said — " I want to meet you all, white and black, 
 in heaven." Having exhorted them in an eloquent strain for half 
 an hour, he sunk away and calmly expired. 
 
 What an affecting and sublime spectacle! The aged soldier and 
 statesman, the idol of half the nation, is slowly expiring. He has but 
 a few hours to live, he is all weakness and pain, but he rouses himself 
 from the gathering torpor of death, and for half an hour gives elo- 
 quent counsel to all " to prepare to meet God." If children, and 
 youth, and servants, needed such counsel from his lips, they need 
 it from ours. If conscience will not let us die in peace without 
 
brainerd's discourse. 369 
 
 discharging our duty in this respect, let us begin early, and in our 
 days of health beseech all around us to be reconciled to God. 
 
 General Jackson would take the sacrament in his sick chamber. 
 He asked it as a privilege. Who in health then, are justified in 
 neglecting this ordinance as it is administered before them in the 
 sanctuary ? Let us learn the viriues of a death-bed while we have 
 health to exercise those virtues in acts of piety. 
 
 I thank God that he led General Jackson in the face of this na- 
 tion to honour, in his last years and hours, the Bible — the Sabbath, 
 the church and its sacraments — and the great doctrine of salvation 
 alone through the atonement of Calvary. We hope those who 
 loved him will hasten to follow this his final example. 
 
 He was always a brave man, but he achieved his greatest triumph, 
 when he humbled his pride at the foot of the cross, and gained a 
 hope which gave him victory over death. 
 
 His civil and military renown may fade amid the mists of coming 
 ages; but God grant that his noble and impressive testimony to the 
 truth and value of the Christian religion, may live in the hearts of 
 men until the pillars of this great globe shall crumble, and time 
 itself be no more. Amen. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 PROCLAMATION 
 
 COMMUNICATED DECEMBER 10, 183 2, 
 
 BY 
 
 ANDREW JACKSON, 
 
 PRESIDENT OP THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 Whereas a convention assembled in the state of South Carolina 
 have passed an Ordinance, by which they declare " That the several 
 acts and parts of acts of the Congress of the United States, pur- 
 porting to be laws for the imposing of duties and imposts on the 
 importation of foreign commodities, and now having actual opera- 
 tion and effect within the United States, and more especially" two 
 acts, for the same purposes, passed on the 29th of May, 1828, and 
 on the 14-th of July, 1832, "are unauthorized by the constitution 
 of the United States, and violate the true meaning and intent there- 
 of, and are null and void, and no law," nor binding on the citizens 
 of that state or its officers; and by the said Ordinance it is further 
 declared to be unlawful for any of the constituted authorities of the 
 state or of the United States, to enforce the payment of the duties 
 imposed by the said acts within the same state, and that it is the 
 duty of the legislature to pass such laws as may be necessary to 
 give full effect to the said Ordinance : 
 
 And whereas, by the said Ordinance, it is further ordained, that, 
 in no case of law or equity, decided in the courts of said state, 
 wherein shall be drawn in question the validity of the said Ordi- 
 nance, or of the acts of the legislature that may be passed to give 
 it effect, or of the said laws of the United States, appeal shall be 
 allowed to the Supreme Court of the United States, nor shall any 
 copy of the record be permitted or allowed for that purpose : and 
 that any person attempting to take such an appeal shall be punished 
 
 as for a contempt of court : 
 
 (371) 
 
372 appendix. 
 
 And, finally, the said Ordinance declares that the people of 
 South Carolina will maintain the said Ordinance at every hazard ; 
 and that they will consider the passage of any act by Congress, 
 abolishing or closing the ports of the said state, or otherwise ob- 
 structing the free ingress or egress of vessels to and from the said 
 ports, or any other act of the federal government to coerce the 
 state, shut up her ports, destroy or harass her commerce, or to en- 
 force the said acts otherwise than through the civil tribunals of the 
 country, as inconsistent with the longer continuance of South Ca- 
 rolina in the Union ; and that the people of the said state will 
 thenceforth hold themselves absolved from all further obligation to 
 maintain or preserve their political connexion with the people of 
 the other states, and will forthwith proceed to organize a separate 
 government, and do all other acts and things which sovereign and 
 independent states may of right do : 
 
 And whereas the said Ordinance prescribes to the people of 
 South Carolina a course of conduct, in direct violation of their 
 duty as citizens of the United States, contrary to the laws of their 
 country, subversive of its constitution, and having for its object 
 the destruction of the Union — that Union, which, coeval with our 
 political existence, led our fathers, without any other ties to unite 
 them than those of patriotism and a common cause, through a san- 
 guinary struggle to a glorious independence — that sacred Union, 
 hitherto inviolate, which, perfected by our happy constitution, has 
 brought us, by the favour of Heaven, to a state of prosperity at 
 home, and high consideration abroad, rarely, if ever, equalled in 
 the history of nations: To preserve this bond of our political ex- 
 istence from destruction, to maintain inviolate this state of national 
 honour and prosperity, and to justify the confidence my fellow- 
 citizens have reposed in me, I, Andrew Jackson, President of 
 the United States, have thought proper to issue this my proclama- 
 tion, stating my views of the constitution and laws applicable to 
 the measures adopted by the convention of South Carolina, and to 
 the reasons they have put forth to sustain them, declaring the 
 course which duty will require me to pursue, and, appealing to the 
 understanding and patriotism of the people, warn them of the con- 
 sequences that must inevitably result from an observance of the 
 dictates of the convention. 
 
 Strict duty would require of me nothing more than the exercise 
 of those powers with which I am now, or may hereafter be invest- 
 ed, for preserving the peace of the Union, and for the execution 
 of the laws. But the imposing aspect which opposition has as- 
 sumed in this case, by clothing itself with state authority, and the 
 deep interest which the people of the United States must all feel 
 in preventing a resort to stronger measures, while there is a hope 
 that anything will be yielded to reasoning and remonstrance, per- 
 
Jackson's proclamation. 373 
 
 haps demand, and will certainly justify, a full exposition to South 
 Carolina and the nation of the views I entertain of this important 
 question, as well as a distinct enunciation of the course which my 
 sense of duty will require me to pursue. 
 
 The Ordinance is founded, not on the indefeasible ri°-ht of re- 
 sisting acts which are plainly unconstitutional and too oppressive 
 to be endured, but on the strange position that any one state may 
 not only declare an act of Congress void, but prohibit its execution 
 — that they may do this consistently with the constitution — that 
 the true construction of that instrument permits a state to retain its 
 place in the Union, and yet be bound by no other of its laws than 
 those it may choose to consider as constitutional. It is true, they 
 add, that, to justify this abrogation of a law, it must be palpably 
 contrary to the constitution ; but it is evident, that to give the right 
 of resisting laws of that description, coupled with the uncontrolled 
 right to decide what laws deserve that character, is to give the 
 power of resisting all laws. For, as by the theory there is no ap- 
 peal, the reasons alleged by the state, good or bad, must prevail. 
 If it should be said that public opinion is a sufficient check against 
 the abuse of this power, it may be asked why it is not deemed a 
 sufficient guard against the passage of an unconstitutional act by 
 Congress. There is, however, a restraint in this last case, which 
 makes the assumed power of a state more indefensible, and which 
 does not exist in the other. There are two appeals from an uncon- 
 stitutional act passed by Congress — one to the judiciary, the other 
 to the people and the states. There is no appeal from the state 
 decision in theory ; and the practical illustration shows that the 
 courts are closed against an application to review it, both judges 
 and jurors being sworn to decide in its favour. - But reasoning on 
 this subject is superfluous when our social compact in express terms 
 declares, that the laws of the United States, its constitution, and 
 treaties made under it, are the supreme law of the land ; and, for 
 greater caution, adds, "that the judges in every state shall be bound 
 thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the 
 contrary notwithstanding." And it may be asserted, without fear 
 of refutation, that, no federative government could exist without a 
 similar provision. Look for a moment to the consequence. If 
 South Carolina considers the revenue laws unconstitutional, and has 
 a right to prevent their execution in the port of Charleston, there 
 would be a clear, constitutional objection to their collection in 
 every other port, and no revenue could be collected anywhere ; 
 for all imposts must be equal. It is no answer to repeat that an 
 unconstitutional law is no law, so long as the question of legality 
 is to be decided by the state itself: for every law operating in- 
 juriously upon any local interest will be perhaps thought, and cer- 
 
374 APPENDIX. 
 
 tainly represented, as unconstitutional, and, as has been shown, 
 there is no appeal. 
 
 If this doctrine had been established at an earlier day, the Union 
 would have been dissolved in its infancy. The excise law in 
 Pennsylvania, the embargo and non-intercourse law in the eastern 
 states, the carriage tax in Virginia, were all deemed unconstitu- 
 tional, and were more unequal in their operation than any of the 
 laws now complained of; but, fortunately, none of those states dis- 
 covered that they had the right now claimed by South Carolina. 
 The war into which we were forced, to support the dignity of the 
 nation and the rights of our citizens, might have ended in defeat 
 and disgrace, instead of victory and honour, if the states who sup- 
 posed it a ruinous and unconstitutional measure, had thought they 
 possessed the right of nullifying the act by which it was declared, 
 and denying supplies for its prosecution. Hardly and unequally as 
 those measures bore upon the several members of the Union, to the 
 legislatures of none did this efficient and peaceable remedy, as it is 
 called, suggest itself. The discovery of this important feature in 
 our constitution was reserved to the present day. To the statesmen 
 of South Carolina belongs the invention, and upon the citizens of 
 that state will unfortunately fall the evils of reducing it to practice. 
 
 If the doctrine of a state veto upon the laws of the Union car- 
 ries with it internal evidence of its impracticable absurdity, our 
 constitutional history will also afford abundant proof that it would 
 have been repudiated with indignation, had it been proposed to 
 form a feature in our government. 
 
 In our colonial state, although dependent on another power, we 
 very early considered ourselves as connected by common interest 
 with each other. Leagues were formed for common defence, and 
 before the declaration of independence, we were known in our ag- 
 gregate character as the United Colonies of America. That de- 
 cisive and important step was taken jointly. We declared ourselves 
 a nation by a joint, not by several acts; and when the terms of our 
 confederation were reduced to form, it was in that of a solemn league 
 of several states, by which they agreed that they would, collec- 
 tively, form one nation for the purpose of conducting some certain 
 domestic concerns, and all foreign relations. In the instrument 
 forming that Union, is found an article which declares that " every 
 state shall abide by the determinations of Congress on all questions 
 which by that confederation should be submitted to them." 
 
 Under the confederation, then, no state could legally annul a 
 decision of Congress, or refuse to submit to its execution ; but no 
 provision was made to enforce these decisions. Congress made re- 
 quisitions, but they were not complied with. The government 
 could not operate on individuals. They had no judiciary, no means 
 of collecting revenue. 
 
Jackson's proclamation. 375 
 
 But the defects of the confederation need not be detailed. Under 
 its operation, we could scarcely be called a nation. We had neither 
 prosperity at home nor consideration abroad. This state of things 
 could not be endured, and our present happy constitution was 
 formed ; but formed in vain, if this fatal doctrine prevails. It was 
 formed for important objects that are announced in the preamble 
 made in the name and by the authority of the people of the United 
 States, whose delegates framed, and whose conventions approved it. 
 The most important among these objects, that which is placed first 
 in rank, on which all the others rest, is "to form a more perfect 
 union." Now, is it possible that, even if there were no express 
 provision giving supremacy to the constitution and laws of the 
 United States over those of the states, it can be conceived, that an 
 instrument made for the purpose of " forming a more perfect 
 union" than that of the confederation, could be so constructed bv 
 the assembled wisdom of our country, as to substitute for that con- 
 federation a form of government dependent for its existence on the 
 local interest, the party spirit of a state, or of a prevailing faction 
 in a state? Every man of plain unsophisticated understanding, 
 who hears the question, will give such an answer as will preserve 
 the Union. Metaphysical subtlety, in pursuit of an impracticable 
 theory, could alone have devised one that is calculated to de- 
 stroy it. 
 
 I consider, then, the power to annul a law of the United States, 
 assumed by one state, incompatible with the existence of the Union, 
 contradicted expressly by the letter of the constitution, unauthorized 
 by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which it was 
 founded, and destructive of the great object for which it was 
 formed. 
 
 After this general view of the leading principle, we must ex- 
 amine the particular application of it which is made in the Ordi- 
 nance. 
 
 The preamble rests its justification on these grounds: It assumes 
 as a fact, that the obnoxious laws, although they purport to be laws 
 for raising revenue, were, in reality, intended for the protection of 
 manufacturers, which purpose it asserts to be unconstitutional — that 
 the operation of these laws is unequal — that the amount raised by 
 them is greater than is required by the wants of the government — 
 and, finally, that the proceeds are to be applied to objects unautho- 
 rized by the constitution. These are the only causes alleged to justify 
 an open opposition to the laws of the country, and a threat of 
 seceding from the Union, if any attempt should be made to enforce 
 them. The first virtually acknowledges, that the law in question 
 was passed under a power expressly given by the constitution, to 
 lay and collect imposts ;. but its constitutionality is drawn in question 
 from the motives of those who passed it. However apparent this 
 
376 ArrENDix. 
 
 purpose may be in the present case, nothing can be more dangerous 
 than to admit the position, that an unconstitutional purpose, enter- 
 tained by the members who assent to a law enacted under a constitu- 
 tional power, shall make that law void ; for how is that purpose to 
 be ascertained? Who is to make the scrutiny'? How often may 
 bad purposes be falsely imputed ? in how many cases are they con- 
 cealed by false professions? in how many is no declaration of 
 motive made? Admit this doctrine, and you give to the states an 
 uncontrolled right to decide, and every law may be annulled under 
 this pretext. If, therefore, the absurd and dangerous doctrine 
 should be admitted that a state may annul an unconstitutional law, 
 or one that it deems such, it will not apply to the present case. 
 
 The next objection is, that the laws in question operate unequally. 
 This objection may be made with truth, to every law that has been 
 or can be passed. The wisdom of man never yet contrived a sys- 
 tem of taxation, that would operate with perfect equality, If tfec 
 unequal operation of a law makes it unconstitutional, and if all laws 
 of that description may be abrogated by any state for that cause, 
 then indeed is the federal constitution unworthy of the slightest 
 effort for its preservation. We have hitherto relied on it as the 
 perpetual bond of our Union. We have received it as the work 
 of the assembled wisdom of the nation. We have trusted to it as 
 to the sheet anchor of our safety, in the stormy times of conflict 
 with a foreign or domestic foe. We have looked to it with sacred 
 awe, as the palladium of our liberties, and, with all the solemnities 
 of religion, have pledged to each other our lives and fortunes 
 here, and our hopes of happiness hereafter, in its defence and sup- 
 port. Were we mistaken, my countrymen, in attaching this im- 
 portance to the constitution of our country? Was our devotion 
 paid to the wretched, inefficient, clumsy contrivance, which this 
 new doctrine would make it I Did we pledge ourselves to the sup- 
 port of an airy nothing — a bubble that must be blown away by the 
 first breath of disaffection ? Was this self-destroying, visionary 
 theory, the work of the profound statesman, the exalted patriots, to 
 whom the task of constitutional reform was intrusted? Did the 
 name of Washington sanction, did the states deliberately ratify, 
 such an anomaly in the history of fundamental legislation ? No. 
 We were not mistaken ! The letter of this great instrument is free 
 from this radical fault: its language directly contradicts the impu- 
 tation : its spirit — its evident intent, contradicts it. No, we did 
 not err! Our constitution does not contain the absurdity of giving 
 power to make laws, and another power to resist them. The sages, 
 whose memory will always be reverenced, have given us a practical, 
 and, as they hoped, a permanent constitutional compact. The 
 Father of his country did not affix his revered name to so palpable 
 an absurdity. Nor did the states, when they severally ratified it, 
 
Jackson's proclamation. 377 
 
 do so under the impression, that a veto on the laws of the United 
 States was reserved to them, so that they could exercise it by 
 implication. Search the debates of all their conventions — ex- 
 amine the speeches of the most zealous opposers of federal autho- 
 rity — look at the amendments that were proposed. They are all 
 silent — not a syllable uttered, not a vote given, not a motion made, 
 to correct the explicit supremacy given to the laws of the Union, 
 over those of the states — or to show that implication, as is now 
 contended, could defeat it. No, we have not erred! The consti- 
 tution is still the object of our reverence, the bond of our Union, 
 our defence in danger, the source of our prosperity and peace. It 
 shall descend, as we have received it, uncorrupted by sophistical 
 construction, to our posterity; and the sacrifices of local interests, 
 of state prejudices, of personal animosities, that were made to 
 bring it into existence, will again be patriotically offered for its 
 support. 
 
 The two remaining objections, made by the Ordinance to these 
 laws, are, that the sums intended to be raised by them, are greater 
 than are required, and that the proceeds will be unconstitutionally 
 employed. The constitution has given expressly to Congress, the 
 right of raising revenue, and of determining the sum the public 
 exigencies will require. The states have no control over the ex- 
 ercise of this right, other than that which results from the power 
 of changing the representatives who abuse it, and thus procure 
 redress. 
 
 Congress may, undoubtedly, abuse this discretionary power, but 
 the same may be said of others with which they are vested. 
 Yet the discretion must exist somewhere. The constitution has 
 given it to the representatives of the people, checked by the 
 representatives of the states, and by the executive power. The 
 South Carolina construction gives it to the legislature or the con- 
 vention of a single state, where neither the people of the different 
 states, nor the states in their separate capacity, nor the chief 
 magistrate, elected by the people, have any representation. 
 Which is the most discreet disposition of the power? I do not ask 
 you, fellow-citizens, which is the constitutional disposition — that 
 instrument speaks a language not to be misunderstood. But if you 
 were assembled in general convention, which would you think the 
 safest depository of this discretionary power, in the last resort? 
 Would you add a clause, giving it to each of the states; or would 
 you sanction the wise provisions already made by your constitution ? 
 If this should be the result of your deliberations, when providing 
 for the future, are you — can you be — ready to risk all that we hold 
 dear, to establish, for a temporary and a local purpose, that which 
 you must acknowledge to be destructive, and even absurd, as a 
 general provision? Carry out the consequences of this right 
 32* 
 
378 APPENDIX. 
 
 vested in the different states, and you must perceive that the crisis 
 vour conduct presents at this day, would recur whenever any law 
 of the United States displeased any of the states, and that we should 
 soon cease to be a nation. 
 
 The Ordinance, with the same knowledge of the future that 
 characterizes a former objection, tells you that the proceeds of the' 
 tax will be unconstitutionally applied. If this should be ascertained 
 with certainty, the objection would, with more propriety, be re- 
 served for the law so applying the proceeds, but surely cannot be 
 urged against the laws levying the duty. 
 
 These are the allegations contained in the Ordinance. Examine 
 them seriously, my fellow-citizens — judge for yourselves. I ap- 
 peal to you to determine whether they are so clear, so convincing, 
 as to leave no doubt of their correctness : and even if you should 
 come to this conclusion, how far they justify the reckless, destruc- 
 tive course, which you are directed to pursue. Review these ob- 
 jections, and the conclusions drawn from them once more. What 
 are they? Every law, then, for raising revenue, according to the 
 South Carolina Ordinance, may be rightfully annulled, unless it be 
 so framed as no law ever will or can be framed. Congress have a 
 right to pass laws for raising revenue, and each state has a right to 
 oppose their execution — two rights directly opposed to each other; 
 and yet is this absurdity supposed to be contained in an instrument 
 drawn for the express purpose of avoiding collisions between the 
 states and the general government, by an assembly of the most en- 
 lightened statesmen and purest patriots ever imbodied for a similar 
 purpose. 
 
 In vain have these sages declared that Congress shall have power 
 to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excise — in vain have 
 they provided that they shall have power to pass laws which shall 
 be necessary and proper to carry those powers into execution ; that 
 those laws and that constitution shall be the "supreme law of the 
 land ; and that the judges in every slate shall be bound thereby, 
 anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary 
 notwithstanding." In vain have the people of the several states 
 solemnly sanctioned these provisions, made them their paramount 
 law, and individually sworn to support them whenever they were 
 called on to execute any office. Vain provisions! ineffectual re- 
 striction! vile profanation of oaths! miserable mockery of legisla- 
 tion ! if a bare majo'rity of the voters in an} r one state, may, on a real 
 or supposed knowledge of the intent with which a law has been 
 passed, declare themselves free from its operation — say here it gives 
 too little, there too much, and operates unequally — here it suffers 
 articles to be free that ought to be taxed, there it taxes those that 
 ought to be free — in this case the proceeds are intended to be ap- 
 plied to purposes which we do not approve; in that the amount 
 
jackson's proclamation. 379 
 
 raised is more than is wanted. Congress, it is true, are invested 
 by the constitution, with the right of deciding these questions ac- 
 cording to their sound discretion. Congress is composed of the re- 
 presentatives of all the states; and of all the people of all the 
 states | but we, part of the people of one state, to whom the con- 
 stitution has given no power on the subject, from whom it has ex- 
 pressly taken it away — wc, who have solemnly agreed that this 
 constitution shall be our law — ice, most of whom have sworn to 
 support it — ice now abrogate this law, and swear, and force others 
 to swear, that it shall not be obeyed — and we do this, not because 
 Congress have no right to pass such laws ; this we do not allege ; 
 but because they have passed them with improper views. They 
 are unconstitutional from the motives of those who passed them, 
 which we can never with certainty know, from their unequal ope- 
 ration ; although it is impossible from the nature of things that 
 they should be equal — and from the disposition which we presume 
 may be made of their proceeds, although that disposition has not 
 been declared. This is the plain meaning of the Ordinance in re- 
 lation to laws which it abrogates for alleged unconstitutionality. 
 But it does not stop there. It repeals, in express terms, an import- 
 ant part of the constitution itself, and of laws passed to give it 
 effect, which have never been alleged to be unconstitutional. The 
 constitution declares that the judicial powers of the United "States 
 extend to cases arising under the laws of the United States, and 
 that such laws, the constitution, and treaties shall be paramount to 
 the state constitutions and laws. The judiciary act prescribes the 
 mode by which the case may be brought before a court of the 
 United States, by appeal, when a state tribunal shall decide against 
 this provision of the constitution. The Ordinance declares there 
 shall be no appeal ; makes the state law paramount to the constitu- 
 tion and laws of the United States ; forces judges and jurors to 
 swear that they will disregard their provisions ; and even makes it 
 penal in a suitor to attempt relief by appeal. It further declares 
 that it shall not be lawful for the authorities of the United States, 
 or of that state, to enforce the payment of duties imposed by the 
 revenue laws within its limits. 
 
 Here is a law of the United States, not even pretended to be un 
 constitutional, repealed by the authority of a small majority of the 
 voters of a single state. Here is a provision of the constitution 
 which is solemnly abrogated by the same authority. 
 
 On such expositions and reasonings, the Ordinance grounds not 
 only an assertion of the right to annul the laws of which it com- 
 plains, but to enforce it by a threat of seceding from the Union, if 
 any attempt is made to execute them. 
 
 This right to secede is deduced from the nature of the constitu- 
 tion, which, they iay, is a compact between sovereign slates, who 
 
380 APrENDix. 
 
 have preserved their whole sovereignty, and, therefore, are subject 
 to no superior : that, because they made the compact, they can 
 break it when, in their opinion, it has been departed from by the 
 other states. Fallacious as this course of reasoning is, it enlists 
 state pride, and finds advocates in the honest prejudices of those 
 who have not studied the nature of our government sufficiently to 
 see the radical error on which it rests. 
 
 The people of the United States formed the constitution, acting 
 through the state legislatures in making the compact, to meet and 
 discuss its provisions, and acting in separate conventions when they 
 ratified those provisions ; but the terms used in its construction, 
 show it to be a government in which the people of all the states 
 collectively are represented. We are one people in the choice of 
 the president and vice-president. Here the states have no other 
 agency than to direct the mode in which the votes shall be given. 
 The candidates having the majority of all the votes, are chosen. 
 The electors of a majority of states may have given their votes for 
 one candidate, and yet another may be chosen. The people then, 
 and not the states, are represented in the executive branch. 
 
 In the House of Representatives there is this difference, that the 
 people of one state do not, as in the case of president and vice-pre- 
 sident, all vote for the same officers. The people of all the states 
 do not vote for all the members, each state electing only its own 
 representatives. But this creates no material distinction. When 
 chosen, they are all representatives of the United States, not re- 
 presentatives of the particular state from which they come. They 
 are paid by the United States, not by the state ; nor are they ac- 
 countable to it for anj' act done in the performance of their legis- 
 lative functions; and, however they may in practice, as it is their 
 duty to do, consult and prefer the interests of their particular con- 
 stituents when they come in conflict with any other partial or local 
 interest, yet it is their first and highest duty, as representatives of 
 the United States, to promote the general good. 
 
 The constitution of the United States, then, forms a government, 
 not a league ; and whether it be formed by compact between the 
 states, or in any other manner, its character is the same. It is a 
 government in which all the people are represented, which operates 
 directly on the people individually, not upon the states: they re- 
 tained all the power they did not grant. But each state having ex- 
 pressly parted with so many powers as to constitute jointly with 
 the other states a single nation, cannot, from that period, possess 
 any right to secede, because such secession does not break a league, 
 but destroys the unity of a nation, and any injury to that unity is 
 not only a breach which would result from the contravention of a 
 compact, but it is an offence against the whole Union. To say that 
 any state may at pleasure secede from the Union, is to say that the 
 
PROCLAMATION. 3S1 
 
 United States are not a nation : because it would be a solecism to 
 contend that any part of a nation might dissolve its connexion with 
 the other parts, to their injury or ruin, without committing any 
 offence. Secession, like any other revolutionary act, may be mo- 
 rally justified by the extremity of oppression; but to call it a con- 
 stitutional right is confounding the meaning of terms; and can only 
 be done through gross error, or to deceive those who are willing to 
 assert a right, but would pause before they made a revolution, or 
 incur the penalties consequent on a failure. 
 
 Because the Union was formed by compact, it is said the parties 
 to that compact may, when they feel themselves aggrieved, depart 
 from it ; but it is precisely because it is a compact that they can- 
 not. A compact is an agreement or binding obligation. It may, 
 by its terms, have a sanction or penalty for its breach, or it may 
 not. If it contains no sanction, it may be broken with no other 
 consequence than moral guilt : if it have a sanction, then the breach 
 incurs the designated or implied penalty. A league between inde- 
 pendent nations, generally, has no sanction other than a moral one ; 
 or, if it should contain a penalty, as there is no common superior, 
 it cannot be enforced. A government, on the contrary, always 
 has a sanction, express or implied ; and, in our case, it is both ne- 
 cessarily implied and expressly given. An attempt by force of 
 arms to destroy a government, is an offence, by whatever means 
 the constitutional compact may have been formed: and such go- 
 vernment has the right, by the law of self-defence, to pass acts for 
 punishing the offender, unless that right is modified, restrained, or 
 resumed, by the constitutional act. In our system, although it is 
 modified in the case of treason, yet authority is expressly given to 
 pass all laws necessary to carry its powers into effect, and under 
 this grant provision has been made for punishing acts which ob- 
 struct the due administration of the laws. 
 
 It would seem superfluous to add anything to show the nature of 
 that union which connects us : but as erroneous opinions on this 
 subject are the foundation of doctrines the most destructive to our 
 peace, I must give some further developement to my views on this 
 subject. No one, fellow-citizens, has a higher reverence for the 
 reserved rights of the states, than the magistrate who now addresses 
 you. No one would make greater personal sacrifices, or official ex- 
 ertions, to defend them from violation ; but equal care must be 
 taken to prevent on their part an improper interference with, or 
 resumption of, the rights they have vested in the nation. The line 
 has not been so distinctly drawn as to avoid doubts in some cases 
 of the exercise of power. Men of the best intentions and soundest 
 views may differ in their construction of some parts of the consti- 
 tution ; but there are others on which dispassionate -reflection can 
 leave no doubt. Of this nature appears to be the assumed right of 
 
382 APPENDIX. 
 
 secession. It rests, as we have seen, on the alleged undivided 
 sovereignty of the states, and on their having formed in this sovereign 
 capacity a compact which is called the constitution, from which, 
 because they made it, they have a right to secede. Both of these 
 positions are erroneous, and some of the arguments to prove them 
 so have been anticipated. 
 
 The states severally have not retained their entire sovereignty. 
 It has been shown that in becoming parts of a nation, not members 
 of a league, they surrendered many of their essential parts of 
 sovereignty. The right to make treaties — declare war — levy taxes 
 — exercise exclusive judicial and legislative powers — were all of 
 them functions of sovereign power. The states, then, for all these 
 important purposes, were no longer sovereign. The allegiance of 
 their citizens was transferred, in the first instance, to the government 
 of the United States — they became American citizens, and owed 
 obedience to the constitution of the United States, and to laws made 
 in conformity with the powers it vested in Congress. This last 
 position has not been, and cannot be denied. How then can that 
 state be said to be sovereign and independent, whose citizens owe 
 obedience to laws not made by it, and whose magistrates are sworn to 
 disregard those laws, when they come in conflict with those passed 
 by another'? What shows conclusively that the states cannot be 
 said to have reserved an undivided sovereignty, is, that they ex- 
 pressly ceded the right to punish treason — not treason against their 
 separate power — but treason against the United States. Treason is 
 an offence against sovereignty ; and sovereignty must reside with the 
 power to punish it. But the reserved rights of the states are not 
 less sacred, because the} r have for their common interest made the 
 general government the depository of these powers. 
 
 The unity of our political character (as has been shown for 
 another purpose) commenced with its very existence. Under the 
 royal government we had no separate character — our opposition to 
 its oppressions began as United Colonies. We were the United 
 States under the confederation, and the name was perpetuated, and 
 the Union rendered more perfect, by the federal constitution. In 
 none of these stages did we consider ourselves in any other light 
 than as forming one nation. Treaties and alliances were made in 
 the name of all. Troops were raised for the joint defence. How, 
 then, with all these proofs that, under all changes of our position, 
 we had, for designated purposes and with defined powers, created 
 national governments — how is it, that the most perfect of those 
 several modes of union should now be considered as a mere league, 
 that it may be dissolved at pleasure ? It is from an abuse of terms. 
 Compact is used as synonymous with league, although the true term 
 is not employed, because it would at once show the fallacy of the 
 reasoning. It would not do to say that our constitution was only a 
 
Jackson's proclamation. 383 
 
 league, but, it is laboured to prove it a compact (which in one 
 sense it is) and then to argue that as a league is a compact, every 
 compact between nations must of course be a league, and that from 
 such an engagement every sovereign power has a right to recede. 
 But it has been shown, that in this sense the states are not sovereign, 
 and that even if they were, and the national constitution had been 
 formed by compact, there would be no right in any one state to 
 exonerate itself from its obligations. 
 
 So obvious are the reasons which forbid this secession, that it is 
 necessary only to allude to them. The Union was formed for the 
 benefit of all. It was produced by mutual sacrifices of interests 
 and opinions. Can those sacrifices be recalled ? Can the states 
 who magnanimously surrendered their title to the territories of the 
 West, recall the grant 1 Will the inhabitants of the inland states 
 agree to pay the duties that may be imposed without their assent by 
 those on the Atlantic or the Gulf, for their own benefit ? Shall 
 there be a free port in one state, and onerous duties in another? 
 No one believes that any right exists in a single state to involve all 
 the others in these and countless other evils, contrary to the engage- 
 ments solemnly made. Every one must see that the other states, 
 in self-defence, must oppose it at all hazards. 
 
 These are the alternatives that are presented by the convention : 
 a repeal of all the acts for raising revenue, leaving the government 
 without the means of support, or an acquiescence in the dissolution 
 of the Union by the secession of one of its members. When the 
 first was proposed, it was known that it could not be listened to for 
 a moment. It was known, if force was applied to oppose the exe- 
 cution of the laws, that it must be repelled by force — that Congress 
 could not, without involving itself in disgrace, and the country in 
 ruin, accede to the proposition : and yet, if this is not done in a 
 given day, or if any attempt is made to execute the laws, the state 
 is, by the Ordinance, declared to be- out of the Union. The 
 majority of a convention assembled for the purpose, have dictated 
 these terms, or rather this rejection of all terms, in the name of the 
 people of South Carolina. It is true, that the governor of the state 
 speaks of the submission of their grievances to a convention of all 
 the states; which, he says, they " sincerely and anxiously seek and 
 desire." Yet this obvious and constitutional mode of obtaining the 
 sense of the other states, on the construction of the federal compact, 
 and amending it, if necessary, has never been attempted by those 
 who have urged the state on this destructive measure. The state 
 might have proposed the call for a general convention, to the other 
 states, and Congress, if a Sufficient number of them concurred, must 
 have called it. But the first magistrate of South Carolina, when 
 he expressed a hope that, "on a review by Congress and the func- 
 tionaries of the general crovernment of the merits of the contro- 
 
384 APPENDIX. 
 
 versy," such a convention will be accorded to them, must have 
 known that neither Congress nor any functionary of the general 
 government has authority to call such a convention, unless it be 
 demanded by two-thirds of the states. This suggestion, then, is 
 another instance of the rfeckless inattention to the provisions 
 of the constitution with which this crisis has been madly hurried 
 on ; or of the attempt to persuade the people that a constitu- 
 tional remedy had been sought and refused. If the legislature of 
 South Carolina " anxiously desire" a general convention to consider 
 their complaints, why have they not made application for it in the 
 way the constitution points out? The assertion that they " ear- 
 nestly seek" it, is completely negatived by the omission. 
 
 This, then, is the position in which we stand. A small majority 
 of the citizens of one state in the Union have elected delegates to 
 a state convention : that convention has ordained that all the reve- 
 nue laws of the United States must be repealed, or that they are 
 no longer a member of the Union. The governor of that state has 
 recommended to the legislature the raising of an army to carry the 
 secession into effect, and that he may be empowered to give clear- 
 ances to vessels in the name of the state. No act of violent oppo- 
 sition to the laws has yet been committed, but such a state of things 
 is hourly apprehended, and it is the intent of this instrument to 
 proclaim not only that the duty imposed on me by the constitution 
 "to take care that the laws be faithfully executed," shall be per- 
 formed to the extent of the powers already vested in me by law, 
 or of such other as the wisdom of Congress shall devise and intrust 
 to me for that purpose, but to warn the citizens of South Carolina, 
 who have been deluded into an opposition to the laws, of the dan- 
 ger they will incur by obedience to the illegal and disorganizing 
 Ordinance of the convention,— to exhort those who have refused to 
 support it to persevere in their determination to uphold the consti- 
 tution and laws of their country, and to point out to all the perilous 
 situation into which the good people of that state have been led, — 
 and that the course they are urged to pursue is one of ruin and 
 disgrace to the very state whose rights they affect to support. 
 
 Fellow-citizens of my native state ! — let me not only admonish 
 you, as the first magistrate of our common country, not to incur the 
 penalty of its laws, but use the influence that a father would over 
 his children whom he saw rushing to certain ruin. In that paternal 
 language, with that paternal feeling, let me tell you, my country- 
 men, that you are deluded by men who are either deceived them- 
 selves, or wish to deceive you. Mark under what pretences you 
 have been led on to the brink of insurrection and treason, on which 
 you stand ! First, a diminution of the value of your staple com- 
 modity, lowered by over production in other quarters, and the con- 
 sequent diminution in the value of your lands, were the sole effect 
 
jackson's proclamation. 385 
 
 of the tariff laws. The effect, of those laws is confessedly in- 
 jurious, but the evil was greatly exaggerated by the unfounded 
 theory you were taught to believe, that its burdens were in propor- 
 tion to your exports, not to your consumption of imported articles. 
 Your pride was roused by the assertion that a submission to those 
 laws was a state of vassalage, and that resistance to them was equal, 
 jn patriotic merit, to the opposition our fathers offered to the op- 
 pressive laws of Great Britain. You were told that this opposition 
 might be peaceably — might be constitutionally made — that you 
 might enjoy all the advantages of the Union and bear none or its 
 burdens. 
 
 Eloquent appeals to your passions, to your state pride, to your 
 native courage, to your sense of real injury, were used to prepare 
 you for the period when the mask which concealed the hideous 
 features of disunion should be taken off. It fell, and you were 
 made to look with complacency on objects which, not long since, 
 you would have regarded with horror. Look back at the arts which 
 have brought you to this state — look forward to the consequences 
 to which it must inevitably lead. Look back to what was first told 
 you as an inducement to enter into this dangerous course. The great 
 political truth was repeated to you, that you had the revolutionary 
 right of resisting all laws that were palpably unconstitutional, and 
 intolerably oppressive — it was added that the right to nullify a law 
 rested on the same principle, but that it was a peaceable remedy i 
 This character which was given to it, made you receive with too 
 much confidence the assertions that were made of the unconstitu- 
 tionality of the law, and its oppressive effects. Mark, my fellow- 
 citizens, that, by the admission of your leaders, the unconstitution- 
 ality must be palpable, or it will not justify either resistance or 
 nullification! What is the meaning of the word palpable, in the 
 sense in which it is here used? — that which is apparent to every 
 one; that which no man of ordinary intellect will fail to perceive. 
 Is the unconstitutionality of these laws of that description'? Let 
 those among your leaders who once approved and advocated the 
 principle of protective duties, answer the question; and let them 
 choose whether they will be considered as incapable, then, of per- 
 ceiving that which must have been apparent to every man of com- 
 mon understanding, or as imposing upon your confidence, and en- 
 deavouring to mislead you now. 
 
 In either case, they are unsafe guides in the perilous path they 
 urge you to tread. Ponder well on this circumstance, and you will 
 know how to appreciate the exaggerated language they address to 
 you. They are not champions of liberty, emulating the fame 
 of our revolutionary fathers ; nor are you an oppressed people, 
 contending, as they repeat to you, against worse than colonial vas- 
 salage. You are free members of a flourishing and happy Union. 
 33 
 
386 APPENDIX. 
 
 There is no settled design to oppress you. You have indeed felt 
 the unequal operation of laws which may have been unwisely, 
 not unconstitutionally passed ; but that inequality must necessarily 
 be removed. At the very moment when you were madly urged on 
 the unfortunate course you have begun, a change in public opinion 
 had commenced. The nearly approaching payment of the public 
 debt, and the consequent necessity of a diminution of duties, had 
 already produced a considerable reduction, and that too, on some" 
 articles of general consumption in your state. The importance of 
 this change was understood, and you were authoritatively told, that 
 no further alleviation of your burdens was to be expected, at the 
 very time when the condition of the country imperiously demanded 
 such a modification of the duties as should reduce them to a just 
 and equitable scale. But, as if apprehensive of the effect of this 
 change in allaying your discontents, you were precipitated into the 
 fearful state in which you now find yourselves. 
 
 I have urged you to look back to the means that were used to 
 hurry you on to the position you have now assumed, and forward 
 to the consequences it will produce. Something more is necessary. 
 Contemplate the condition of that country of which you still form 
 an important part ! — consider its government, uniting in one bond 
 of common interests and general protection so many different states 
 — giving to all their inhabitants the proud title of American citi- 
 zens — protecting their commerce — securing their literature and 
 their arts — facilitating their intercommunication, defending their 
 frontiers — and making their name respected in the remotest parts 
 of the earth ! Consider the extent of its territory, its increasing 
 and happy population, its advance in arts which render life agree- 
 able, and the sciences which elevate the mind ! See education 
 spreading the lights of religion, humanity, and general information 
 into every cottage in this wide extent of our territories and states! 
 Behold it as the asylum where the wretched and the oppressed find 
 a refuge and support ! Look on this picture of happiness and ho- 
 nour, and say, we, too, are citizens of America ; Carolina is one 
 of these proud states : her arms have defended — her best blood has 
 cemented this happy Union ! And then add, if you can, without 
 horror and remorse, this happy Union we will dissolve — this pic- 
 ture of peace and prosperity we will deface — this free intercourse 
 we will interrupt — these fertile fields we will deluge with blood — 
 the protection of that glorious flag we renounce — the very name 
 of Americans we discard. And for what, mistaken men ! for what 
 do you throw away these inestimable blessings — for what would 
 you exchange your share in the advantages and honour of the 
 Union? For the dream of a separate independence, a dream in- 
 terrupted by bloody conflicts with your neighbours, and a vile de- 
 pendence on a foreign power. If your leaders could succeed in 
 
jackson's proclamation. 3S7 
 
 establishing a separation, what would be your situation? Are you 
 united at home — are you free from the apprehension of civil dis- 
 cord, with all its fearful consequences? Do our neighbouring re- 
 publics, every day suffering some new revolution or contending 
 with some new insurrection' — do they excite your envy ? But the 
 dictates of a high duty oblige me solemnly to announce that you 
 cannot succeed. The laws of the United States must be executed. 
 I have no discretionary power on the subject — my duty is empha- 
 tically pronounced in the constitution. Those who told you that 
 you might peaceably prevent their execution, deceived you — they 
 could not have been deceived themselves. They know that a forci- 
 ble opposition could alone prevent the execution of the laws, and 
 they know that such opposition must be repelled. Their object is 
 disunion ; but be not deceived by names : disunion, by armed force, 
 is treason. Are you really ready to incur its guilt? If you are, 
 on the heads of the instigators of the act be the dreadful conse- 
 quences — on their heads be the dishonour, but on yours may fall 
 the punishment — on your unhappy state will inevitably fall all the 
 evils of the conflict you force upon the government of your coun- 
 try. It cannot accede to the mad project of disunion of which 
 you would be the first victims — its first magistrate cannot, if he 
 would, avoid the performance of his duty- — the consequence must 
 be fearful for you, distressing to your fellow-citizens here, and to 
 the friends of good government throughout the world. Its enemies 
 have beheld our prosperity with a vexation they could not conceal 
 — it was a standing refutation of their slavish doctrines, and they 
 will point to our discord with the triumph of malignant joy. It is 
 yet in your power to disappoint them. There is yet time to show 
 that the descendants of the Pinckneys, the Sumters, the Rutledges, 
 and of the thousand other names which adorn the pages of your 
 Revolutionaty history, will not abandon that Union, to support 
 which so many of them fought and bled and died. I adjure you, 
 as you honour their memory — as you love the cause of freedom, 
 to which they dedicated their lives — as you prize the peace of 
 your country, the lives of its best citizens, and your own fair fame, 
 to retrace your steps. Snatch from the archives of your state the 
 disorganizing edict of its convention — bid its members to reassem- 
 ble and promulgate the decided expressions of your will to remain 
 in the path which alone can conduct you to safety, prosperity, and 
 honour — tell them that, compared to disunion, all other evils are 
 light, because that brings with it an accumulation of all — declare 
 that you will never take the field unless the star-spangled banner 
 of your country shall float over you — that you will not be stigma- 
 tized when dead, and dishonoured and scorned while you live, as 
 the authors of the first attack on the constitution of your country! 
 — its destroyers you cannot be. You may disturb its peace — you 
 
388 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 may interrupt the Course of its prosperity — 3 T ou may cloud its re- 
 putation for stability — but its tranquillity will be restored, its pros- 
 perity will return ; and the stain upon its national character will be 
 transferred, and remain an eternal blot on the memory of those who 
 caused the disorder. 
 
 Fellow-citizens of the United States! The threat of unhallowed 
 disunion — the names of those, once respected, by whom it is ut- 
 tered — the array of military force to support it — denote the ap- 
 proach of a crisis in our affairs on which the continuance of our 
 unexampled prosperity, our political existence, and perhaps that 
 of all free governments, may depend. The conjuncture demanded 
 a free, a full, and explicit enunciation not only of my intentions, 
 but of my principles of action : and as the claim was asserted of a 
 right by a state to annul the laws of the Union, and even to secede 
 from it at pleasure, a frank exposition of my opinions in relation 
 to the origin and form of our government, and the construction I 
 give to the instrument by which it was created, seemed to be pro- 
 per. Having the fullest confidence in the justness of the legal and 
 constitutional opinion of my duties which has been expressed, I 
 rely with equal confidence on your undivided support in my de- 
 termination to execute the laws — to preserve the Union by all con- 
 stitutional means — to arrest, if possible, by moderate but firm mea- 
 sures, the necessity of a recourse to force ; and, if it be the will 
 of Heaven that the recurrence of its primeval curse on man for 
 the shedding of a brother's blood should fall upon our land, that it 
 be not called down by any offensive act on the part of the United 
 States. 
 
 Fellow-citizens ! The momentous case is before you. On your 
 undivided support of your government depends the decision of the 
 great question it involves, whether your sacred Union will be pre- 
 served, and the blessing it secures to us as one people shall be per- 
 petuated. No one can doubt the unanimity with which that de- 
 cision will be expressed, will be such as to inspire new confidence 
 in republican institutions, and that the prudence, the wisdom, and 
 the courage which it will bring to their defence, will transmit them 
 unimpaired and invigorated, to our children. 
 
 May the great Ruler of nations grant that the signal blessings 
 with which He has favoured ours, may not by the madness of party 
 or personal ambition be disregarded and lost : and may His wise 
 Providence bring those who have produced this crisis, to see the 
 folly before they feel the misery of civil strife: and inspire a re- 
 turning veneration for that Union which, if we may dare to pene- 
 trate His designs, he has chosen as the only means of attaining the 
 high destinies to which we may reasonably aspire. 
 
THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT 
 
 OF 
 
 ANDREW JACKSON, 
 
 Hermitage, June 7th, 1843. 
 
 In the Name of God, Amen : — I, Andrew Jackson, Sen'r., 
 being of sound mind, memory, and understanding, and im- 
 pressed with the great uncertainty of life and the certainty of 
 death, and being desirous to dispose of my temporal affairs so 
 that after my death no contention may arise relative to the 
 same — And whereas, since executing my will of the 30th of 
 September, 1833, my estate has become greatly involved by my 
 liabilities for the debts of my well-beloved and adopted son An- 
 drew Jackson, Jun., which makes it necessary to alter the same : 
 Therefore I, Andrew Jackson, Sen'r., of the county of Davidson, 
 and state of Tennessee, do make, ordain, publish, and declare 
 this my last will and testament, revoking all other wills by me 
 heretofore made. 
 
 First, I bequeath my body to the dust whence it comes, and 
 my soul to God who gave it, hoping for a happy immortality 
 through the atoning merits of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Sa- 
 viour of the world. My desire is, that my body be buried by 
 the side of my dear departed wife, in the garden at the Her- 
 mitage, in the vault prepared in the garden, and all expenses 
 paid by my executor hereafter named. 
 
 Secondly, That all my just debts to be paid out of my per- 
 sonal and real estate by my executor ; for which purpose to 
 meet the debt my good friends Gen'l. J. B. Planchin & Co. of 
 
 (107) 
 
408 APPENDIX. 
 
 New Orleans, for the sum of six thousand dollars, with the in- 
 terest accruing thereon, loaned to me to meet the debt due by 
 A. Jackson, Jun., for the purchase of the plantation from Hi- 
 ram G. Runnels, lying on the east bank of the river Mississippi, 
 in the state of Mississippi. Also, a debt due by me of ten thou- 
 sand dollars, borrowed of my friends Blair and Rives, of the 
 city of Washington and District of Columbia, with the interest 
 accruing thereon ; being applied to the payment of the lands 
 bought of Hiram G. Runnels as aforesaid, and for the faithful 
 payment of the aforesaid recited debts, I hereby bequeath all 
 my real and personal estate. After these debts are fully paid — 
 
 Thirdly, I give and bequeath to my adopted son, Andrew 
 Jackson, Junior, the tract of land whereon I now live, known 
 by the Hermitage tract, with its butts and boundaries, with all 
 its appendages of the three lots of land bought of Samuel 
 Donelson, Thomas J. Donelson, and Alexander Donelson, sons 
 and heirs of Sovern Donelson, deceased, all adjoining the Her- 
 mitage tract, agreeable to their butts and boundaries, with all 
 the appurtenances thereto belonging or in any wise appertain- 
 ing, with all my negroes that I may die possessed of, with the 
 exception hereafter named, with all their increase after the be- 
 fore recited debts are fully paid, with all the household furni- 
 ture, farming tools, stock of all kind, both on the Hermitage 
 tract farms, as well as those on the Mississippi plantation, to 
 him and his heirs for ever. — The true intent and meaning of this 
 my last will and testament is, that all my estate, real, personal, 
 and mixed, is hereby first pledged for the payment of the 
 above recited debts and interest ; and when they are fully paid, 
 the residue of all my estate, real, personal, and mixed, is here- 
 by bequeathed to my adopted son A. Jackson, Jun., with the 
 exceptions hereafter named, to him and his heirs for ever. 
 
 Fourth, Whereas I have heretofore by conveyance, deposited 
 with my beloved daughter Sarah Jackson, wife of my adopted 
 son A. Jackson, Jun., given to my beloved granddaughter, Ra- 
 chel Jackson, daughter of A. Jackson, Jun. and Sanh his wife* 
 
LAST WfEL AND TESTAMENT. 409 
 
 several negroes therein described, which I hereby confirm. — I 
 give and bequeath to my beloved grandson Andrew Jackson, 
 son of A. Jackson, Jun. and Sarah his wife, a negro boy named 
 Ned, son of Blacksmith Aaron and Hannah his wife, to him and 
 his heirs for ever. 
 
 Fifth, I give and bequeath to my beloved little grandson, 
 Samuel Jackson, son of A. Jackson, Jun. and his much beloved 
 wife Sarah, one negro boy named Davy or George, son of 
 Squire and his wife Giney, to him and his heirs for ever. 
 
 Sixth, To my beloved and affectionate daughter, Sarah Jack- 
 son, wife of my adopted and well beloved son, A. Jackson, Jun., 
 I hereby recognise, by this bequest, the gift I made her on her 
 marriage, of the negro girl Gracy, which I bought for her, and 
 gave her to my daughter Sarah as her maid and seamstress, with 
 her increase, with my house-servant Hanna and her two daugh- 
 ters, namely, Charlotte and Mary, to her and her heirs for ever. 
 This gift and bequest is made for my great affection- for her — 
 as a memento of her uniform attention to me and kindness on 
 all occasions, and particularly when worn down with sickness, 
 pain, and debility — she has been more than a daughter to me, 
 and I hope she never will be disturbed in the enjoyment of this 
 gift and bequest by any one. 
 
 Seventh, I bequeath to my well beloved nephew, Andrew J. 
 Donelson, son of Samuel Donelson, deceased, the elegant sword 
 presented to me by the state of Tennessee, with this injunction, 
 that he fail not to use it when necessary in support and protec- 
 tion of our glorious union, and for the protection of the consti- 
 tutional rights of our beloved country, should they be assailed 
 by foreign enemies or domestic traitors. This, from the great 
 change in my worldly affairs of late, is, with my blessing, all I 
 can bequeath him, doing justice to those creditors to whom I am 
 responsible. This bequest is made as a memento of my high 
 regard, affection, and esteem I bear for him as a high-minded, 
 honest, and honourable man. 
 
 Eighth, To my grand-nephew Andrew Jackson Coffee, I be- 
 
410 APPENDIX. 
 
 queath the elegant sword presented to me by the Rifle Com- 
 pany of New Orleans, commanded by Capt. Beal, as a me- 
 mento of my regard, and to bring to his recollection the gallant 
 services of his deceased father Gen'l. John Coffee, in the late In- 
 dian and British war, under my command, and his gallant con- 
 duct in defence of New Orleans in 1814 and 1815 ; with this 
 injunction, that he wield it in the protection of the rights secured 
 to the American citizen under our glorious constitution, against 
 all invaders, whether foreign foes, or intestine traitors. 
 
 I bequeath to my beloved grandson Andrew Jackson, son of 
 A. Jackson, Jun. and Sarah his wife, the sword presented to 
 me by the citizens of Philadelphia, with this injunction, that he 
 will always use it in defence of the constitution and our glori- 
 ous union, and the perpetuation of our republican system : re- 
 membering the motto — " Draw me not without occasion, nor 
 sheath me without honour." 
 
 The pistols of Gen'l. Layfayette, which were presented by 
 him to Gen'l. George Washington, and by Col. Wm. Robertson 
 presented to me, I bequeath to George Washington Lafayette, 
 as a memento of the illustrious personages through whose hands 
 they have passed — his father, and the father of his country. 
 
 The gold box presented to me by the corporation of the City 
 of New York, the large silver vase presented to me by the 
 ladies of Charleston, South Carolina, my native state, wdth the 
 large picture representing the unfurling of the American ban- 
 ner, presented to me by the citizens of South Carolina when it 
 was refused to be accepted by the United States Senate, I leave 
 in trust to my son A. Jackson, Jun., with directions that should 
 our happy country not be blessed wath peace, an event not 
 always to be expected, he will at the close of the war or end of 
 the conflict, present each of said articles of inestimable value, to 
 that patriot residing in the city or state from which they were 
 presented, w r ho shall be adjudged by his countrymen or the la- 
 dies to have been the most valiant in defence of his country and 
 our country's rights. 
 
LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT. 411 
 
 The pocket spyglass which was used by Gen'l. Washington 
 during the revolutionary war, and presented to me by Mr. Cus- 
 tis, having been burned with my dwelling-house, the Hermit- 
 age, with many other invaluable relics, I can make no disposi- 
 tion of them. As a memento of my high regard for Gen'l. Ro- 
 bert Armstrong as a gentleman, patriot, and soldier, as well as 
 for his meritorious military services under my command during 
 the late British and Indian w r ar, and remembering the gallant 
 bearing of him and his gallant little band at Enotochopco creek, 
 when, falling desperately wounded, he called out — " My brave 
 fellows, some may fall, but save the cannon" — as a memento of 
 all these things, I give and bequeath to him my case of pistols 
 and sword worn by me throughout my military career, well 
 satisfied that in his hands they will never be disgraced — that 
 they will never be used or drawn without occasion, nor sheathed 
 but with honour. 
 
 Lastly, I leave to my beloved son all my walking-canes and 
 other relics, to be distributed amongst my young relatives — 
 namesakes — first, to my much esteemed namesake, Andrew J. 
 Donelson, son of my esteemed nephew A. J. Donelson, his first 
 choice, and then to be distributed as A. Jackson, Jun. may think 
 proper. 
 
 Lastly, I appoint my adopted son Andrew Jackson, Jun., my 
 whole and sole executor to this my last will and testament, and 
 direct that no security be required of him for the faithful execu- 
 tion and discharge of the trusts hereby reposed in him. 
 
 In testimony whereof I have this 7th day of June, one thou- 
 sand eight hundred and forty-three, hereunto set my hand, and 
 affixed my seal, hereby revoking all wills heretofore made by 
 me, and in the presence of 
 
 Marion Adams, \ 
 
 Elizabeth D. Love, 5 ANDREW JACKSON. {Seal.) 
 
 Thos. J. Donelson, £ 
 
 Richard Smith, 
 
 R. Armstrong. $ 
 
412 APPENDIX. 
 
 State of Tennessee, Davidson County Court, 
 
 July Term, 1845. J 
 
 A paper writing, purporting to be the last will and testa- 
 ment of Andrew Jackson, Sen., dec'd., was produced in open 
 court for probate, and proved thus: — Marion Adams, Eliza- 
 beth D. Love, and Richard Smith, three of the subscribing wit- 
 nesses thereto, being first duly sworn, depose and say, that they 
 became such in the presence of the said Andrew Jackson, Sr., 
 dec'd., and at his request and in the presence of each other; and 
 that they verily believe he was of sound and disposing mind and 
 memory at the time of executing the same. 
 
 Ordered, That said paper writing be admitted to record as 
 such will and testament of the said Andrew Jackson, Sr., dec'd. 
 Whereupon Andrew Jackson, Jun., the executor named in said 
 will, came into court and gave bond in the sum of two hundred 
 thousand dollars, (there being no security required by said will,) 
 and qualified according to law. 
 
 Ordered, That he have letters testamentary granted to him. 
 
 State of Tennessee, Davidson County : 
 
 I, Robert B. Castleman, Clerk of the County Court, of said 
 county, do certify that the foregoing is a true and perfect copy 
 of the original will of Andrew Jackson, Sr., dec'd., together 
 with the probate of the same, as proven at the July term, 184-5, 
 of said court, as the same remains of record in my office. In 
 testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand, and affixed 
 the seal of said court at my office, this the loth day of August, 
 ^/, tJ v in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred 
 kp.i.im | an d forty-five. 
 
 «45&a^ Ro. B. Castleman, 
 
 By his deputy, 
 
 Phineas Garrett. 
 
 
A CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 BETWEEN 
 
 GEN. A. JACKSON AND COM. J. D. ELLIOTT. 
 
 The patriotic reply of General Jackson to Commodore J. D. Elliot's 
 letter, tendering him the use of the Sarcophagus obtained by him at 
 Palestine, as his final resting-place, having been alluded to in several 
 of the eulogies in this work, and it having been thought proper to insert 
 it in this place, Commodore Elliott has kindly furnished the Editor with 
 the correspondence. 
 
 Washington City, March 18th, 1845. 
 
 My Dear General : — Last night I made something of a 
 speech at the National Institute, and have offered for their 
 acceptance the sarcophagus which I obtained at Palestine, 
 brought home in the Constitution, and believed to contain the 
 remains of the Roman emperor, Alexander Severus, with the 
 suggestion that it might be tendered you for your final resting- 
 place. I pray you, General, to live on in the fear of the Lord ; 
 dying the death of a Roman soldier ; an emperor's coffin awaits 
 you. 
 
 I am truly your old friend, 
 
 Jesse D. Elliott. 
 
 To General Andrew Jackson. 
 
 Hermitage, March 27, 1845. 
 
 Dear Sir : — Your letter of the 18th instant, together with 
 the copy of the proceedings of the National Institute, furnished 
 me by their corresponding secretary, on the presentation, by 
 
 (413) 
 
414 APPENDIX. 
 
 you, of the sarcophagus for their acceptance, on condition it 
 shall be preserved, and in honour of my memory, have been 
 received, and are now before me. 
 
 Although labouring under great debility and affliction, from a 
 severe attack from which I may not recover, I raise my pen 
 and endeavour to reply. The steadiness of my nerves may 
 perhaps lead you to conclude my prostration of strength is not 
 so great as here expressed. Strange as it may appear, my 
 nerves are as steady as they were forty years gone by ; whilst, 
 from debility and affliction, I am gasping for breath. 
 
 I have read the whole proceedings of the presentation, by you, 
 of the sarcophagus, and the resolutions passed by the board of 
 directors, so honourable to my fame, with sensations and feelings 
 more easily to be conjectured than by me expressed. The whole 
 proceedings call for my most grateful thanks, which are hereby 
 tendered to you, and through you to the president and directors 
 of the National Institute. But with the warmest sensations 
 that can inspire a grateful heart, I must decline accepting the 
 honour intended to be bestowed. I cannot consent that my 
 mortal body shall be laid in a repository prepared for an empe- 
 ror or a king. My republican feelings and principles forbid it ; 
 the simplicity of our system of government forbids it. Every 
 monument erected to perpetuate the memory of our heroes and 
 statesmen ought to bear evidence of the economy and simplicity 
 of our republican institutions, and the plainness of our republi- 
 can citizens, who are the sovereigns of our glorious Union, and 
 whose virtue it is to perpetuate it. True virtue cannot exist 
 where pomp and parade are the governing passions ; it can only 
 dwell with the people — the great labouring and producing 
 classes that form the bone and sinew of our confederacy. 
 
 For these reasons I cannot accept the honour you and the 
 president and directors of the National Institute intended to 
 bestow. I cannot permit my remains to be the first in these 
 United States to be deposited in a sarcophagus made for an 
 
APPENDIX. 415 
 
 emperor or king. I again repeat, please accept for yourself, 
 and convey to the president and directors of the National Insti- 
 tute, my most profound respects for the honour you and they in- 
 tended to bestow. I have prepared a humble depository for my 
 mortal body beside that wherein lies my beloved wife, where, 
 without any pomp or parade, I have requested, when my God 
 calls me to sleep with my fathers, to be laid ; for both of us 
 there to remain until the last trumpet sounds to call the dead to 
 judgment, when we, I hope, shall rise together, clothed with 
 that heavenly body promised to all who believe in our glorious 
 Redeemer, who died for us that we might live, and by whose 
 atonement I hope for a blessed immortality. 
 I am, "with great respect, 
 
 Your friend and fellow-citizen, 
 
 Andrew Jackson. 
 To Com. J. D. Elliott, United States Navy. 
 
 Navy Yard, Philadelphia, April 8, 1845. 
 
 Gentlemen : — The interest which the National Institute has 
 been pleased to take in the eventual bestowment of the remains 
 of the honoured Andrew Jackson in the sarcophagus which I 
 brought from abroad, and deposited in your institute, makes it 
 my business now to communicate to you a copy of his letter of 
 the 27th ultimo, lately received, on that subject. 
 
 With sentiments so congenial to his strict republicanism — and 
 in accordance, indeed, with the republican feelings common to 
 ourselves — he takes the ground of repugnance to connecting his 
 name and fame in any way with imperial associations. 
 
 We cannot but honour the sentiments which have ruled his 
 judgment in the case ; for they are such as must add to the 
 lustre of his character. We subscribe to them ourselves ; and 
 while we yield to their force, we may still be permitted to con- 
 tinue our regard to the enduring marble, as to an ancient and 
 
416 APPENDIX. 
 
 classic relic — a curiosity in itself, and particularly in this coun- 
 try, as the first of its kind seen in our Western hemisphere. 
 
 From it we would deduce the moral, that, while we should 
 disclaim the pride, pomp, and circumstance of imperial pagean- 
 try, as unfitting our institutions and professions, we would sedu- 
 lously cherish the simpler republican principle of reposing our 
 fame and honours in the hearts and affections of our country- 
 men. 
 
 I have now, in conclusion, to say, that, as the sarcophagus 
 was originally presented with the suggestion of using it as above- 
 mentioned, I now commit it wholly to the institute as their own 
 and sole property, exempt from any condition. 
 I am, very respectfully, yours, &c, 
 
 Jesse Duncan Elliott, 
 
 To the President and Directors of the 
 National Institute, at Washington. 
 
 &77-1