ions, but feel that the people will accord to the suggestion, and every where respond to what we have declared.

"Wishing you long life, health, and happiness, we remain your friends and fellow citizens."

To this address sixty-eight names were finally appended. Colonel Stanbaugh, in a letter to Major Lewis, narrates how those names were obtained:

"I can not tell you," he wrote, March 31, "how much I feel rejoiced that you see the necessity of placing General Jackson's name before the American people without delay as a candidate for reëlection. Two modes presented themselves to me as well calculated to afford our friends at Washington a pretext for announcing the General's name as a candidate. One was a letter, to be addressed to him, approving the measures of his administration, etc., by the General Committee of Correspondence of this State, of which I am a member; and the other way that suggested itself was a call from the different presses in the State which supported him at the last election. I had prepared letters to carry both these plans into execution, and although some of our presses, you are aware, are under the control of a certain influence, I believe I could get them all to come out on the subject. No matter what the private views and feelings of politicians may be who claim to belong to the democratic party, they will hesitate before they give their own opinions and wishes, when the question is put to them, either to support or reject the old hero.

"Pennsylvania is still sound, depend upon it, no matter what timeserving politicians, high in power, may say to the contrary; but just as certain it is, that the salvation of the democratic party, as well here as in other States, depends upon General Jackson's being again a candidate.

"Your letter convinced me at once that this subject can no where 'originate with better grace than in the Pennsylvania Legislature,' and there it shall originate if God spares my life till to-morrow. The views you sent me could not, in my opinion, be altered for the better, and I drew up a letter from them, with but a trifling variation, or rather addition. There were fifteen members at my house yesterday afternoon, every one of whom signed the letter, and at once came into the spirit of the subject. Two more-Senators-were here this morning and signed it. On Tuesday I hope we will be enabled to send it to the Patriot Chief. Would it not, my dear sir, be good policy for other States friendly to General Jackson to follow Pennsylvania immediately with similar declarations? It might all be done before Congress adjourns. Write to me, if you please, by return mail, and give me your opinion as to the place the letter had better make its first appearance. I think the Pennsylvania Reporter would be the

proper place. It would have the appearance of being the act of the members, and state that they were in good earnest on the subject. The sooner it is published, I think, the better. If you write by return mail I will get your letter on Wednesday, and I can have the other published in Friday's paper. Remember me to the President, to Major Eaton, and Mrs. Eaton."

Major Lewis promptly replied. The address was published in the paper named by Colonel Stanbaugh, preceded by these words: "We are pleased to lay before our readers the following letter, signed by sixty-eight members of the Legislature, expressing their approbation of the wise, judicious, republican measures of General Jackson's administration, and respectfully urging him again to become a candidate for the presidency."

CHAPTER XXIV.

AN UNHARMONIOUS CABINET.

COULD the Cabinet be other than an unharmonious one? It was divided into two parties upon the all-absorbing question of Mrs. Eaton's character. For Mrs. Eaton were Mr. Van Buren, Major Eaton, Mr. Barry, and the President. Against Mrs. Eaton were Mr. Ingham, Mr. Branch, Mr. Berrien, and the Vice-President. The situation of poor Eaton was most embarrassing and painful; for the opposition to his wife being feminine, it could neither be resisted nor avenged. He was the most miserable of men, and the more the fiery President strove to right the wrongs under which he groaned, the worse his position became. The show of civility kept up between himself and the three married men in the Cabinet was, at last, only maintained on occasions that were strictly official. Months passed during which he did not exchange a word with Mr. Branch except in the presence of the President.

To add to his disgust, charges were trumped up against himself of having, in settling the accounts of the late purser, Timberlake, connived at a fraud upon the government. An anonymous letter was sent him of a truly fiendish character. "Revenge is sweet," said this nameless devil," and I have you in my power, and I will roast you, and boil you, and bake you; and I hope you may long live to prolong my pleasure. Lay not the flattering unction to your soul, that you can escape me. I would not that death, or any evil thing, should take you from my grasp for half the world." Never was a Cabinet minister so tormented before his time.

After enduring this unhappy state of things for nearly a year, the President's patience was completely exhausted, and he was determined that his Cabinet should either be harmonized or dissolved. Mr. Ingham afterward placed on record the manner in which the difficulty was, for a time, disposed of. His statement, which accords with the narratives of Mr. Branch and Mr. Berrien, is correct in its material particulars.

"On Wednesday, the 27th of January, 1830," wrote Mr. Ingham, “Colonel R. M. Johnson, of Kentucky, waited on me in the Treasury Department, and after some preliminary conversation, in which he expressed his regret that my family and that of Mr. Branch and Mr. Berrien did not visit Mrs. Eaton, he said that it had been a subject of great excitement with the President, who had come to the determination of having harmony in his Cabinet by some accommodation of this matter. He, Colonel Johnson, was the friend of us all, and had now come at the request of the President to see whether any thing could be done: who thought that, when our ladies gave parties, they ought to invite Mrs. Eaton; and as they had never returned her call, if they would leave the first card and open a formal intercourse in that way, the President would be satisfied; but unless something was done of this nature, he had no doubt, indeed he knew that the President was resolved to have harmony, and would probably remove Mr. Branch, Mr. Berrien, and myself. I replied to Colonel Johnson, that in all matters of official business, or having any connection therewith, I considered myself bound to maintain an open, frank, and harmonious intercourse with the gentlemen I was associated with. That the President had a right to expect the exertion of my best faculties, and the employment of my time, in the public service. As to the family of Mr. Eaton, I felt an obligation on me not to say any thing to aggravate the difficulties

which he labored under, but to observe a total silence and neutrality in relation to the reports about his wife, and to inculcate the same course as to my family, and if any other representations had been made to the President, they were false. Having prescribed to myself this rule, and always acted upon it, I had done all that the President had a right to expect. That the society of Washington was liberally organized; there was but one circle, into which every person of respectable character, disposed to be social, was readily admitted, without reference to the circumstance of birth, fortune, or station, which operated in many other places. That we had no right to exert official power to regulate its social intercourse. That Mrs. Eaton had never been received by the society here, and it did not become us to force her upon it; that my family had, therefore, not associated with her, and had done so with my approbation; and that the President ought not, for the sake of his own character, to interfere in such matters. But if he chose to exert his power to force my family to visit any body they did not choose to visit, he was interfering with what belonged to me, and no human power should regulate the social intercourse of my family, by means of official or any other power which I could resist. If I could submit to such control, I should be unworthy of my station, and would despise myself. That it was eminently due to the character of the President to have it known that he did not interfere in such matters; and that the course we had pursued was preservative of his honor and political standing. I had taken my ground on mature reflection as to what was due to my family, my friends, and the administration, without any prejudice to Major Eaton or his wife, and had fully determined not to change it, whatever might be the consequence.

"Col. Johnson said that he had been requested by the President to have a conversation with the Secretary of the Navy and the AttorneyGeneral also; but, from what I had said, he supposed it would be of no avail. The President expressed a hope that our families would have been willing to invite Mrs. Eaton to their large parties, to give the appearance of an ostensible intercourse, adding that he was so much excited that he was like a roaring lion. He had heard that the lady of a foreign minister had joined in the conspiracy against Mrs. Eaton, and he had sworn that he would send her and her husband home if he could not put an end to such doings. I replied, that it could hardly be possible that the President contemplated such a step. Col. Johnson replied that he certainly did; and again remarked that it seemed to be useless for him to see Mr. Branch and Mr. Berrien. I told him that each of us had taken our course upon our own views of the propriety without concert; and that he ought not to consider me as answering for any but myself. He then proposed that I should meet him at Mr. Branch's, and invite Mr. Berrien, that evening at seven o'clock, which was agreed to. Col. Johnson came to my house

about six, and we went up to Mr. Berrien's, having first sent for Mr. Branch. On our way to Mr. Berrien's, Col. Johnson remarked that the President had informed him that he would invite Mr. Branch, Mr. Berrien, and myself, to meet him on the next Friday, when he would inform us, in the presence of Dr. Ely, of his determination; and if we did not agree to comply with his wishes, he would expect us to send in our resig

nations.

"Upon our arrival at Mr. Berrien's, Col. Johnson renewed the subject in presence of him and Governor Branch, and repeated substantially, though I thought rather more qualifiedly, what he had said to me. He did not go so much into detail, nor do I recollect whether he mentioned the Presi dent's remarks as to the lady above mentioned and Dr. Ely; those gentlemen will better recollect. Mr. Branch and Mr. Berrien replied, as unequivocally as I had done, that they would never consent to have the social relations of their families controlled by any power whatever but their own. Mr. Branch, Mr. Berrien, and myself went the same evening to a party at Col. Towson's, where a report was current that we were to be removed forthwith, of which I had no doubt at the time.

"The next morning, Col. J. came to my house and said that he ought, perhaps, to have been more frank last evening, and told us positively that the President had finally determined on our removal from office, unless we agreed at once that our families should visit Mrs. Eaton, and invite her to their large parties; and that he had made up his mind to designate Mr. Dickins to take charge of the Treasury Department, and Mr. Kendall to take charge of the Navy Department, and would find an AttorneyGeneral somewhere. I observed that my course was fixed, and could not be changed for all the offices in the President's gift; and it made no more difference to me than to any other person whom the President designated to take my place. In the evening of the same day, Col. J. called again, and informed me that he had just been with the President, who had drawn up a paper explanatory of what he had intended and expected of us; that some of his Tennessee friends had been with him for several hours; that his passions had subsided, and he had entirely changed his ground. He would not insist on our families visiting Mrs. Eaton; he only wished us to assist in putting down the slanders against her; that he believed her innocent, and he thought our families ought to do what they could to sustain her, if they could not visit her, and that he wished to see me the next day. Col. Johnson added that the President had been exceedingly excited for several days, but was now perfectly calm and mild. The next day I waited on the President, and opened the subject by stating that Col. Johnson had informed me that he wished to see me, to which he assented, and went into a long argument to show how innocent a woman Mrs. Eaton was, and how much she had been persecuted, and VOL. III.-20