hero go.' I mingled with them, and distinctly remember hearing one lady say she had had a good-bye kiss from the General, and she should not wash it off for a month. Oh! what a noise there was! A parrot, which had been brought up a democrat, was hurraing for Jackson, and the clapping, shouting, and waving of handkerchiefs have seldom been equaled. When the steamboat passed out of sight, and they realized that he was really gone, the city seemed to subside and settle down, as if the object of its being was accomplished.

"But the sad part of my remembrances is the death of Mrs. Jackson. Early one bright, pleasant morning, my father was putting on his uniform, to go with the other officers then in the city, to the Hermitage, to escort the President-elect to Nashville. Before he had completed his toilet, a black man left at the door a hand-bill, announcing Mrs. Jackson's death, and requesting the officers to come to the Hermitage, with the usual badges of mourning, to attend her funeral. She had died very suddenly at night, without any apparent disease, it being very generally supposed that her death was occasioned by excess of joy at her husband's election. When it was discovered that she was dead, the General could not be prevailed upon to part with her body, but held it tightly in his arms until almost forced from his embrace.

"This news caused great commotion. Many ladies went out to superintend the funeral, and displayed more zeal than judgment by arraying the body in white satin, with kid gloves and slippers. Pearl ear-rings and necklace were likewise placed upon it; but, at the suggestion of some whose good sense had not entirely forsaken them, I believe these ornaments were removed. The day of the funeral proving damp and drizzly, the walk from the house to the grave was laid with cotton for the procession to pass over.

"Notwithstanding the grief displayed by the friends of this really good woman, on account of her sudden death, it was supposed by many that they felt it, after all, a relief; for it was a matter of great anxiety how she would appear as

mistress of the White House, especially as some of her warm but injudicious friends had selected and prepared an outfit for the occasion more suitable for a young and beautiful bride, than for a homely, withered-looking, old woman.”* Who can record impressions like a woman?

CHAPTER XV.

INAUGURATION.

THERE was no time for mourning. Haggard with grief and watching, "twenty years older in a night," as one of his friends remarked, the President-elect was compelled to enter without delay upon the labor of preparing for his journey to Washington. His inaugural address, the joint production of himself, Major Lewis, and Henry Lee, was written at the house of Major Lewis, near Nashville. But one slight alteration was made in this document after the General reached the seat of government. General Jackson furnished the leading ideas; Major Lewis made some suggestions; Henry Lee gave it form and style.

Before leaving home, the General drew up a series of rules for the guidance of his administration, one of which was, that no member of his cabinet should be his successor. General Jackson left home resolved to do right in his high office. I know this to be true. Whether he ruled wisely or the contrary, it is certain that he left the grave of his wife determined, in his inmost soul, to stand by the people of the United States, and administer the government with a single eye to their good. But woe to those who had slandered and killed that wife! These two feelings had no struggle for

* The New York American suggested for the epitaph of Mrs. Jackson the following words:

“ILLA VERO FELIX, NON TAM CLARITATE VITE, QUAM OPPORTUNITATE

MORTIS."

mastery in his peculiarly constituted nature. In him they were one and the same.

He was accompanied to Washington by his nephew, Andrew Jackson Donelson, who was to be his private secretary; by Mrs. Andrew Jackson Donelson, who was to preside over the official mansion; by a beautiful and accomplished neice of Mrs. Jackson, who was to reside with him, and assist Mrs. Donelson to do the honors of his house; by Henry Lee, his able scribe, who went with him to be appointed to an office; and, lastly, by Major Lewis, whose intention was merely to witness the inauguration and then return to his plantation. The artist, Earl, followed the General soon, and resided at the White House during the whole period of General Jackson's occupation of it, engaged always in painting the President's portrait. It was well understood by the seekers of presidential favor that it did no harm to order a portrait of General Jackson from this artist, who was facetiously named the king's painter. Mr. Earl never stood still for lack of orders.

The party left Nashville on a Sunday afternoon about the middle of January. The journey to Washington-every one knows what it must have been. The complete, the instantaneous acquiescence of the people of the United States in the decision of a constitutional majority-a redeeming feature of our politics-was well illustrated on this occasion. The steamboat that conveyed the General and his party down the Cumberland to the Ohio and up the Ohio to Pittsburg, a voyage of several days, was saluted or cheered as often as it passed a human habitation. At Cincinnati, it seemed as if all Ohio, and, at Pittsburg, as if all Pennsylvania, had rushed forth to shout a welcome to the President-elect. Indeed, the whole country appeared to more than acquiesce in the result of the election.

Very many of the supporters of Mr. Adams felt, doubtless, as Ezekiel Webster felt, when he wrote to his brother Daniel, in February, 1829: "The people always supported Mr. Adams' cause from a cold sense of duty, and not from

any liking of the man. We soon satisfy ourselves that we have discharged our duty to the cause of any man, when we do not entertain for him one personal kind feeling, and can not, unless we disembowel ourselves, like a trussed turkey, of all that is human nature within us. If there had been at the head of affairs a man of popular character, like Mr. Clay, or any man whom we are not compelled by our natures, instincts, and fixed fate to dislike, the result would have been different."

So, the whole country joined, at last, in the cry, Hurra for Jackson! Some few daring spirits at Hartford, we are told, burned the President-elect in effigy in the evening of the sacred 8th of January; but the public indignation was such, that the authorities of the city offered a reward of one hundred dollars for the "conviction of the persons engaged in it." So says the sedate Mr. Niles; who also records, in his brief manner, without comment, that General Jackson did not call upon President Adams on his arrival in Washington. The reader knows why he did not. The precious register of Mr. Niles rescues likewise from oblivion the fact, that "General Merkle of Franklin Market, New York," sent to General Jackson "a piece of the celebrated ox, Grand Canal, as a suitable tribute of General Merkle's high respect for the patriotism General Jackson has uniformly displayed in the public service of his country, and hopes at the same time it may arrive to grace his table on the 4th of March."

General Merkle had the pleasure of receiving an autograph acknowledgment from General Jackson: "Permit me, sir, to assure you of the gratification which I felt in being enabled to place on my table so fine a specimen of your market, and to offer you my sincere thanks for so acceptable a token of your regard for my character."*

* "BUTCHER POLITENESS.-An English butcher lately sent a haunch of pure Southdown mutton to the Emperor. He has since received, through the medium of the French ambassador in London, an autograph letter from the Tuileries, acknowledging the thanks of the Emperor, and accompanying it with a gold medal intrinsically worth twenty guineas."-Newspaper, 1860.